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HARVARD COLLEGE
LIBRARY

FROM THE BEQUEST OF

HUGO REISINGER

OF NEW YORK
For the purchase of German hooks

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A. C. Fowler, Prinier, 6, Tenter Street, Moorfield%, London, B.C.

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Faust and Margaret iu the Garden.

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CONTENTS

Preface

»»

Student

Dedication

Prologue for the Theatre
Prologue in Heaven

Night

Before the Gate
Faust's Study (i)

(ii)

Scene with the
Auerbach's Cellar in Leipzig

Witch's Kitchen

The Street

Evening — a Neat Little Room

Public Walk

The Neighbour's House

The Street

Garden

A Summer House
Forest and Cavern
Margaret's Room
Martha's Garden

At the Well

Zwinger

Night: Street before Margaret's Door
v/acneQrai ••• ••• »•• ••■ ■••

May Day Night: The Hartz Mountains
May Day Night's Dream : Intermezzo
A Gloomy Day: Open Country
Night: A Common
Dungeon ...

Appendix : —

Shelley's Translations

m ^ ^^^^^^^ ••• •■* ••• ••• •••

PAGE

• •

VII

103

105

109

111

113

117

120

131

138

141

142

151
171

III

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

*^ Faust and Margaret in the Garden Frontispiece

•^Prologue in Heaven 5

^Faust and the Spirit of the Earth 18

*^Before the Gate 27

•^Under the Lime Tree 32

'^ Faust, Wagner and the Poodle 36

*^Mephistopheles appears to Faust in his Study 40

"^Mephistopheles and the Student 54

^In Auerbach's Cellar 66

^Faust and the Magic Mirror 70

^The Witch's Kitchen 72

»^ Faust drinks the Magic Potion 74

'^Faust meets Margaret in the Street ... ... 76

"Margaret adorns herself with the Jewels 80

"^Mephistopheles at the Neighbour's House ... 86

"^aust and Margaret in the Summer House ■ 98

^Faust and Mephistopheles in the Cavern 100

^/Margaret at the Spinning Wheel 102

"^Faust and Margaret in Martha's Garden 106

Margaret at the Well - 108

"^Margaret supplicating the Mater Dolorosa 110

^Faust and Valentine 114

"^he Evil Spirit tempting Margaret in the Cathedral 118

"^Witches ascending the Brocken 122

^On the Hartz Mountains 126

•^he Young Witch 134

*^t Oberon and Titania's Golden Wedding Feast 136

"^Faust and Mephistopheles on the Common 140

*^Faust visits Margaret in the Dungeon 144

"^aust disappears with Mephistopheles 146

PREFACE

^''T^HE first part of Faust occupied Goethe's attention for the
1 best thirty years of his life, or, as a French writer has happily
expressed it, the play was his confidant during that period.
He did not work upon it continuously, but it was never for long lost
sight of, every new experience suggesting some development of the
play. " The Marionette fable of Faust,*' says Goethe, " murmured
with many voices in my soul. I, too, had wandered into every
department of knowledge, and had returned early enough satisfied
with the vanity of science. And life, too, I had tried under various
aspects, and always came back sorrowing and unsatisfied." Goethe
took the old legend of Faustus, and without making any considerable
alteration, he produced a Mystery play symbolising the higher and
lower natures of man. Although the characters are often too subtle,
the play, as Lewes says in his Life of Goethe^ '^ appeals to all minds
with the irresistible fascination of an eternal problem, and with the
charm of endless variety. It has every element : wit, pathos, wisdom,
£arce, mystery, melody, reverence, doubt, magic, and irony ; not a chord
of the lyre is unstrung, not a fibre of the heart untouched. In Faust
we see, as in a mirror, the eternal problem of our intellectual; and,
beside it, varied lineaments of our social existence."

But before we deal with Goethe's Faust, we will say some-
thing about Dr. Faustus himself, his deeds, and the legends
concerning him which formed the basis not only of Goethe's drama,
but of Christopher Marlowe's '' Faustus," Calderon's '' El Magico
Prodigioso," Klinger's " Faust," and Heine's " Ballet," besides many
other dramas, pantomimes and romances.

• •

VII

PREFACE

The particulars that are known of the life of Dr. Johann Faust,
though of the most meagre kind, are sufficient to establish the fact
that such a person really once existed. Such a statement may seem
at first sight somewhat banal, but when one considers the tangled
web of legend that envelopes the personality of the far-famed
magician, it is not astonishing that he presents himself to us chiefly
as a mythological figure. The subject, apart from the details
preserved of his life, is almost an endless one. After his death there
sprang up a maze of legends culminating in the history published in
1587. This last book forms the basis of Marlowe's play, Goethe's
drama, the opera, and the innumerable ballads, dramatic pieces and
pantomimes that have appeared and continue to appear on the
subject of Dr. Faustus.

Johann Faust, or Faustus, was born into this world, of parents
of humble origin, towards the end of the fifteenth century. The
precise date of his birth is not known, and the honour of being
his birth-place, like that of many other great men, is claimed by more
than one town, namely, Kundlingen in Wurtemberg, Anhalt, and Bran-
denberg, while in the history of his life mentioned above, Rhodes,
near Weimar, is assigned as his native place. He studied divinity and
obtained a degree of Doctor of Theology, but he grew weary of his
religious profession and abandoned it for medicine, soon graduating
as a physician. He then devoted himself to the study of magic
and astrology, and traded on the credulity of a superstitious age.
He was numbered among the friends of Paracelsus and Cornelius
Agrippa, and he is alluded to by Martin Luther. The Abbot
of Spanheim, Johann Trithemius, a notable scholar of the time,
makes mention of meeting at Gelnhausen in May, 1506, one
Georgius Sabellicus, who boasted that if all the works of Plato and
Aristotle were destroyed, he could restore them from memory. This
Sabellicus is supposed to have been Faust, and while he avoided
Trithemius, whom he regarded as a cheat, he left a card with him
in which he describes himself as a magician and after his own name
adds that of " Faustus Junior.*' There are other evidences of an
early sixteenth century Faust, but whether he was the same, or
another magician with a similar name, it is not clear. A friend
of Melancthon, Conrad Mudt, mentioned a charlatan who in 1513
boasted to him of powers of magic, and called himself Georgius

• • •

vni

PREFACE

Faustus, Hemitheus (demigod) of Heidelberg. And according to
Johann Mennel's notes of Melancthon's conversation, published in
1562, the Reformer is reported to have said that he knew a man
named Faustus of Kundlingen, who studied at Cracow the magic
which used to be taught there, and who attended the public lectures
that were given on the art. In his wanderings he visited Venice,
where he boasted that he would fly, but the devil who helped him to
rise, allowed him to fall, so that he almost met with his death. He
then relates that not many years before, this same Faustus sat at
the village inn on his last day so deeply troubled that the innkeeper
inquired of him the reason for his mournful mood, as he had formerly
been a very wild fellow. Faust bid him not to be frightened that night.
At midnight the house shook, and when in the morning Faust did
not appear, the innkeeper sought him in his chamber, where he found
him lying near his bed, with his face horribly contorted. In this way
the devil is said to have taken his due. The date of Faust's death or
disappearance from the world is unascertainable, but he does not
seem to have been heard of later than about 1530 or at the latest
1540, although Carlyle gives the date as about 1560. His reputa-
tion however did not die with him. He soon became the type of all
that is evil and diabolical ; he was accredited with every kind of
mischievous prank, and he had the unenviable distinction of being
selected as the master spirit of centuries of crime.

Other books containing stories of Faust followed on Mennel's,
notably one by Wier in 1563, and another by Augustin Lercheimer in
1585. But in September, 1587, at Frankfort on Main, there was
published by Johann Spies the first history of Faust, with the title of
'' Historia von D. Johann Fausten, dem weit beschreyten Zauberer
und Schwartzktinstler." Only five copies of this work are known,
one of which is in the British Museum. The book, which was
reprinted with additions and alterations in 1588 and 1589, was
apparently written by a minister of the Reformed Church, with
the intention of preaching against the vanity of the world. It is full
of the mediaeval legends of demons and magic, such as were accepted
as true in the Middle Ages. The story took hold of the public and
its influence was apparent almost at once in England. Before the
end of 1587, the Bishop of London, John Aylmer, had licensed
" A Ballad of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus the great

ix A

PREFACE

Conjuror/' and in 1592 a translation appeared of the original book
under the title of " The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved
Death of Dr. John Faustus. Newly imprinted, and in convenient
places imperfect matter amended, according to the true copy printed
at Franckfort, and translated into English by P. R. Gent, London,
1592." A later edition of this curious book was reprinted in the
third volume of Mr. William J. Thom's " Early Prose Romances,"
1828, from which our extracts are taken. There also appeared in
1594 at London an English translation of "The Second Report of
Doctor John Faustus, containing his Appearances, and the Deeds of
Wagner. Written by an English Gentleman, student of Wittenberg,
an university of Germany, in Saxony. Published for the delight of
all those which desire novelties, by a friend of the same gentleman."

In this history of Faust, the life and death of the Doctor is traced
from his birth " in the town of Rhodes, being in the Province of
Weimar," with an account of his studies in divinity to the day when
he made his compact with Lucifer through Mephistopheles. The
following is given as a copy of the actual document which Faust
wrote with his own blood, assigning his body and soul to Lucifer.

/, John Faustus, doctor, do openly acktiowledge with mine own
hand, to the great force and strengthening of this letter, that siftce I
began to study, and speculate the course and nature of the elements, I
have not found, through the gift that is given me from above, any such
learning and wisdom that can bring me to my desire, and for that I
find that men are unable to instruct me any farther in the matter ; now
have /, Doctor Faustus, to the hellish prince of Orient, and his messenger,
Mephistophiles, given both body and soul, upon such conditions, that
they shall learn me, and fulfil my desires in all things, as they have
promised and vowed unto me, with due obedience unto me, according to
the articles mentioned between us.

Farther, I do covenant and grant with them by these presents,
that at the end of twenty-four years next ensuing the date of this
present letter, they being expired, and I in the meantime, during the said
years, be served of them at my will, they accomplishing my desires to
the full in all points as we are agreed : that then I give to them all the
power to do with me at their pleasure, to rule, to send, fetch or carry
me or mine, be it either body, soul, fiesh, blood or goods, into their

PREFACE

habitation, be it wheresoever: and hereupon I defie God and his Christ,
all the Host of Heaven, and all living creatures that bear the shape of
God ; yea, all that live : And again I say it, and it shall be so, and to
the more strengthening of this writing, I have written it with my own
hand and blood, being in perfect memory : and hereupon I subscribe to
it with my name and title, calling all the infernal, middle and supreme
powers to witness of this my letter and subscription,

John Faustus.
Approved in the elements, and the spiritual doctor*

Then says the book, ^'Mephistopheles took the writing and willed
Faustus to take a copy of it. With that the perverse Faustus being
resolute in his damnation, wrote a copy thereof, and gave the devil
one, and kept in store the other. Thus the spirit and Faustus were
agreed, and dwelt together; no doubt there was a virtuous house-
keeping" .... There was, however, another member of this
household who will be familiar, though in a different form, to the
readers of Goethe's play. The story says: "Faust kept a boy with
him, that was his scholar, an unhappy wag, called Christopher Wagner,
to whom this sport and life that he saw his master followed seemed
pleasant. Faustus loved the boy well, hoping to make him as good
or better seen in his hellish exercises than himself, and he was
fellow with Mephistopheles. Otherwise Faustus had no company in
his house but himself and boy, and spirit that ever was diligent at
Faustus's command going about the house, clothed like a friar, with
a little bell in his hand, seen by none but Faustus."

Mephistopheles is as good as his word, he provides Faust with
everything he desires, victuals, wine and other delights, which
he filches with characteristic cunning from the Duke of Saxony, the
Duke of Bavaria and the Bishop of Salisburg. And when Faust
" opened his window what fowl soever he wished for came flying into
the house, were it never so dainty . • • Moreover Faust and
his boy went in sumptuous apparel, the which Mephistopheles stole
from the mercers at Norenburg."

After a time Faust becomes restless, and desires to have proofs
of his companion's supernatural powers, so Mephistopheles not only
gives him a view of Hell, and of the torments of the damned, but
he carries him " through the air up to the Heavens to see the

xi A 2

PREFACE

whole World, and how the Sky and Planets ruled," in the space of
eight dayti' Other journeys are taken by Faust and his companion,
one in which practically all the then known places of the world
are visited, named and described. The author of this strange and
entertaining book never fails to introduce his moral— either by means
of dialogue between Faust and Mephistopheles, or by comment,
in which the inevitable result of Faust's sin is reiterated. But
whenever Paust is inclined to reflect, and he has occasional Bts of
remorse, he is at once menaced by a taste of the tortures of the
infernal regions, until he is forced to give up any thoughts of
repentance. At length the time draws near for Faust to resign
himself to Lucifer according to their compact. The twenty-four
years are all but completed, and he makes his will naming his
servant Wagner as his heir. To Wagner Faust also leaves his
books, and he gives him a spirit, Aberecock, in the form of an ape,
on condition as he says : — " that you publish my cunning and my
many conceits, with all that I have done (when 1 am dead) in a
history, and if thou canst not remember all, the spirit Aberecock
will help thee ; so shall the acts that I have done be made manifest
unto the world."

The last month of his life Faust passed in grieving and
wailing; "talking to himself, wringing his hands, sobbing and
sighing. His flesh fell away, and he was very lean, and kept himself
close; neither could he abide, see or hear of his Mephistopheles
any more."

On the last day that Faust was to spend on this earth he
gathered together some friends and students who often visited him
at his house in merriment, and entreated them to "walk into a village
called Rimlich, half a mile from Wlttenburg, and that they would

PREFACE

prayed for him, they wept, and so went forth. But Faustus tarried
in the hall ; and when the gentlemen were lain in bed, none of
them could sleep, for that they attended to hear if they might be
privy of his end. It happened that between twelve and one o'clock
of midnight, there blew a mighty storm of wind against the house,
as though it would have blown the foundation thereof out of its
place. Hereupon the students began to fear, and go out of their
beds, but they would not stir out of the chamber, and the host of
the house ran out of doors, thinking the house would fall. The
students lay near unto the hall wherein Dr. Faustus lay, and they
heard a mighty noise and hissing, as if the hall had been full of
snakes and adders. With that the hall door flew open wherein
Dr. Faustus was. Then he began to cry for help, saying, " Murder,
murder ! " but it was with a half voice, and very hollow. Shortly
after they heard him no more. But when it was day, the students,
that had taken no rest that night, arose and went into the hall in
which they had left Dr. Faustus, where notwithstanding they found
not Faustus, but all the hall sprinkled with blood, the brains cleaving
to the wall, for the devil had beaten him from one wall against
another. In one corner lay his eyes, in another his teeth, a fearful
and pitiful sight to behold. Then began the students to wail and
weep for him, and sought for his body in many places. Lastly they
came into the yard, when they found his body lying on the horse
dung, most monstrously torn, and fearful to behold, for his head
and all his joints were dashed to pieces. The fore-named students
and masters that were at his death, obtained so much, that
they buried him in the village where he was so grievously
tormented."

Before we quit the subject of the death of Dr. Faustus, it is
interesting to note, on the evidence of Neuman, that during the Thirty
Years' War, when the enemy entered Saxony, a detachment found
quarters at Breda, a village on the Elbe. The commander was
speedily informed by the Magistrate of the village that he was
occupying the identical house in which Faust had met his horrible
death, and that the walls were still besprinkled with his blood. On
confronting this ghastly evidence, the soldiers stood for awhile
aghast, and then fled from the place in horror.

Among those to read the Faust story-book on its appearance in

• • •

xui

PREFACE

English was Christopher Marlowe, then about twenty-five, having
the year before graduated Master of Arts at Benet College,
Cambridge. His first play " Tamburlaine the Great '* had not long
been produced; his "Tragical History of Doctor Faustus*' probably
followed shortly afterwards. But the date of its appearance cannot
be fixed, as the earliest edition of the play is the quarto of 1604,
published eleven years after Marlowe met his death at the age of
twenty-nine in a tavern brawl. Marlowe's Faustus is in some
respects more suited to the tastes of Englishmen than Goethe's
Faust. Charles Lamb preferred it to the German drama, which,
however, he only knew through a translation. Marlowe's fine tragedy
is, after all, a straightforward piece of work of the conventional type,
based on the old German story-book, unrelieved with any humour,
and without a Marguerite. " What has Margaret to do with Faust?"
said Lamb, **a scene from Marlowe is worth Goethe's whole play."
Certainly in the last scene Marlowe reaches the highest point of
poetical expression. But Marlowe's " Faustus " will not bear com-
parison with Goethe's Faust. Whatever view one may take of Lamb's
judgment, the greatness of Marlowe's tragedy cannot be denied.
Marlowe did not, however, like Goethe, take advantage of the oppor-
tunities that the subject afforded him of treating it symbolically.

For a hundred and seventy or eighty years after the publication
in 1587 of the famous old history of Dr. Faustus, the legend
continued to be kept alive by the appearance of various plays,
pantomimes and romances based on the story of the Doctor's life.

But by far the most important version of the legend is that
of Goethe. Born at Frankfort on the Maine on August 28th,
1749, Johann Wolfgang was the son of Johann Caspar Goethe, an
imperial councillor in Frankfort, and Katherine Elizabeth, daughter
of Johann Wolfgang Texter, the chief magistrate. Goethe's father
was a man of good education, but of a stern and pedantic character.
His mother, on the other hand, was of a joyous, affectionate nature,
who gained the love of everyone. She was well read in most of
the best German and Italian authors ; she was also witty, shrewd,
and, in short, the very woman for a poet's mother. Her illustrious
son was born when she was only eighteen. " I and my Wolfgang,"
she said, "have always held fast to one another, because we were
both young together." Young Goethe was a precocious child, and

xiv

PREFACE

was especially quick in picking up languages, for it is said that
before he was eight he had learned to write in German, French,
Italian, Latin and Greek, and he later added to this list a knowledge
of English and Hebrew. In October, 1765, at the age of sixteen,
Goethe went to Leipzig to study at the University. After partially
abandoning his studies, and giving some attention to art, he entered
the University of Strasburg in 1770. Here, as at Leipzig, he fell in
love : he also studied Shakespeare, and returned home as Dr. Goethe.
The influence of Shakespeare on Goethe was undoubtedly considerable.
This influence he admits in regard to his flrst published work,
"Goetz von Berlichingen," the story of an old German hero, sur-
named Gottfried of the Iron Hand. In 1774 was published his
novel, " The Sorrows of Young Werther," which Lewes describes
as '' but the cry of that dim, rooted pain under which all thoughtful
men of a certain age were languishing : it paints the misery, it
passionately utters the complaint ; and heart and voice all over
Europe loudly and at once responded to it." This unrest to
which " Werther " was the poet's response was the outcome of
a sense of unreality consequent on conditions of over civilization.
The success of the book was enormous, but it did not suggest a
remedy : it was not until the thunder of the French Revolution had
rolled away that any relief was found for the malaise with which the
world was suffering. Henceforth Goethe enjoyed universal fame. In
Europe generally he was known for many years solely as the author
of this sentimental romance ; but in Germany, where he was a reality,
his remarkable intellectual gifts brought him to the notice of his
most influential contemporaries. Among them was Karl August,
the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who begged him to visit his Court. Goethe
accepted the invitation, and arrived at Weimar on November 7th,
1775, his age at the time being twenty-six. This visit was all-
important to the young poet, as he practically spent the rest of
his long life in this small city on the banks of the Ilm. Werther
had set a fashion, not only in ideas, but in dress. Goethe no sooner
appeared at the Court than he made a conquest of everyone ; the
ladies worshipped him ; even the poet Wieland, who was one of the
fixed literary stars in the constellation of Weimar, was instantly
won. " In the costume," says Lewes, " of his own Werther, which was
instantly adopted by the Duke, he seemed the ideal of a poet. To

PREFACE

moderns there are no very sentimental suggestions in a costume which
was composed of a blue coat and brass buttons, top boots and leather
breeches, the whole surmounted by powder and pigtail ; but in those
days this costume was the suggestion of everything tender and
romantic. Werther had consecrated it.*' No one, however, was
more completely captivated by Goethe than Karl August. He and
Goethe became inseparables ; but this friendship, begun with such
force, did not exhaust itself ; it was composed of qualities of a more
enduring kind than mere boon companionship, and grew into one of
those friendships which last a lifetime. Karl August soon showed
his great appreciation of Goethe by over-stepping precedence and
electing him to the post of Geheime Legations Rath, with a seat
and voice on the Privy Council, and a salary of 1,200 thalers (£200).
This was the first of many honours that his kind-hearted patron
showered upon him ; but as years went on the poet chafed at the
restrictions of Court life, and the deadening effect that it had on his
work. He certainly produced his classical play Iphigenia, but it was
not until he got away for a time from Weimar, first on a journey
to Switzerland, and later to Italy, that his powers of composition
returned to him with their old vigour.

Faust may be said to have occupied Goethe on and off practically
all his life-time. The Faust legend was ^miliar to him from
childhood. In 1770-1 while at Strasburg, says Lewes, he formed
the idea of putting his personal experiences into the form of an
old legend. However, he did nothing until 1774-5, when he wrote
the ballad of King Thule, the first monologue and the first scene
with Wagner. And while he was in love with Lili, he sketched
Marguerite's catastrophe: "the scene with her in the street, and in
her bedroom, and the scenes between Faust and Mephistopheles
during the walk and in the street, and the garden scene." During
his journey to Switzerland he made some considerable additions
to the work, and when in Italy he read over the whole MS., and
made some further additions. The play was first printed in 1790,
as a portion of the seventh volume of Goethe's works, with the title :
Faust: Bin Fragment. In 1797 he remodelled the entire work,
afterwards adding the two Prologues, the Dedication, and the
Walpurgis night. The play as it now stands was practically
completed in 1801, and was included in the 1806 edition of Goethe's work.

xvi

PREFACE

Commentators who have dealt with every phrase of Goethe's
drama, have shown what were the sources from which he derived
his story. The subject is too vast and complicated to be treated
here, but it is sufficient to say that Goethe's researches for
material were very wide and thorough, and, like Sir Walter Scott, he
studied the history of Witchcraft and the Black Art.

In his Life of Goethe, George Henry Lewes gives an excellent
analysis of Faust, to which I cannot do better than direct the
attention of the reader who desires to make a full study of the
subject. Goethe's play is immeasurably more matured than
Marlowe's, and is far from being a mere dramatic version of the
story. He has not only given us a psychological and philosophical
study of Faustus' life, but he has exalted it into a symbol of human
life ; and the resultant work may be compared to a brilliant with
innumerable facets, each reflecting a difi^erent colour and light.

The latter days of Goethe still found him engaged on Faust.
It has t>een regretted that he did not leave the first part as a
fragment. However, he continued the story in a second part, a work
not to be compared with the earlier portion in point of interest.
This composition was completed in July, 1831, and on March 22,
1832, Goethe passed away at Weimar, at the ripe age of 82.

Faust is not very suitable for popular representation, but it
has formed the basis of several acting versions, some of which
have attained great success, chief of which is undoubtedly the
grand opera, popular both on account of the romantic story which
it presents, and of Gounod's music. This opera in five acts
was first produced at the Thddtre Lyrique, Paris, on March 19th,
1859. The words, founded on the first part of Goethe's drama, were
written by Barbier & Carr^,

The following wa3 the original cast: —

Marguerite - - - Mme. Miolan Carvalho.
Siebel . - - - Mile. Faivre.
Faust - - - - M. Barbot.
Valentin - - - - M. Regnal.
Mephistopheles - - - M. Balanqu^.
Martha . - - - Mme. Duclos.

The opera first appeared in London as ''Faust" on June 11th,
1863, in English on January 23rd, 1864; and in Germany as

xvii

PREFACE

" Margarethe." The story of the opera follows Goethe's tragedy
very closely.

Among the notable theatrical representations of Faust, mention
must be made of the production in London by Henry Irving at the
Lyceum in 1885. The play, which was adapted by W. G. Wills from
the first part of Goethe's drama, and was mounted with much costliness
and magnificence, is still remembered by theatre-goers as a land-mark
in the progress of their play-going experiences. Miss Ellen Terry,
who played Marguerite to Henry Irving's Mephistopheles, tells us
in her reminiscences of the popularity of this production, but adds,
that some of the mothers who took their daughters regularly to the
Lyceum plays drew a line at Fattst, which they considered too
realistic.

Goethe's Faust has been translated into English many times.
The earliest version is probably that published anonymously in 1821.
Shelley was perhaps the next to attempt the task, but his untimely
death in July, 1822, prevented him from finishing it, if he ever
contemplated doing so. It is said that he intended to make
good certain deficiencies in the work of the earlier translator.
Besides a few fragmentary lines, he completed the Prologue, and the
May- day Night. The beauty of these pieces is of course far above any
other English metrical translations of the play, and although in some
minor points Shelley has misconstrued the meaning of the original,
one cannot but regret that he did not live to finish the work. His
two scenes will be found in the appendix to this book. Professor
John Stuart Blackie made a good verse translation of Faust in his
student days (published in 1834), and many years afterwards, in
1880, revised and re-issued it.

Dr. John Anster, an Irish lawyer, contributed some fragments
of a translation of Faust to Blackwood's Magazine, and afterwards
reprinted the whole play in 1835. The translation, for a metrical one,
is true to the original, and is pleasantly written. Perhaps the best
verse translation of both parts of Faust was made by Bayard Taylor,
and published in 1870-1. This version is deservedly esteemed by
some above all others. One of the most popular translations, however,
is that of Miss Anna Swanwick (both parts, and in verse), which
forms a portion of the Bohn series. Yet another version in verse,
by Sir Theodore Martin, appeared in 1865. French literature has been

xviii

PREFACE

enriched by a translation of Faust by a distinguished man of letters,
Gerard de Nerval.

It is very difficult to derive satisfaction from a prose translation
of Faust, and almost impossible from a metrical one. One can hardly
expect to preserve the beauty of Goethe's style ; the most that
can be looked for is a clear and accurate rendering of the original.

The only English translation which can in any way be said to give
this is the version by Abraham Hayward, reprinted in this book. The
son of a country gentleman of Wiltshire, himself the author of
some books on the science of agriculture, Abraham Hayward was
born on November 22nd, 1801, at White Luckington, Somerset.
He was educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton, and after some
home tuition was articled to a country solicitor, but he abandoned this
profession for the Bar, and entered himself at the age of twenty-
three as a student of the Inner Temple. Starting without friends in
London, he soon made many by joining the London Debating Society,
where he became associated (among others) with J. S. Mill, who
commended his powers of speaking. He became one of the original
editors of the Law Magazine, and continued as its sole director
until June, 1844. In the meantime he was called to the Bar.
Hayward visited Germany in 1831, and on his return he printed
his translation of Faust for private circulation, and afterwards
published it in 1833 through Moxon. In the autumn of that year he
revisited Germany, and in the following January re-issued an
enlarged edition of Faust. The book was well noticed in Germany,
and was received with cordiality by Hallam, Southey, Rogers, Allan
Cunningham, and many others. Carlyle regarded it as the best
version in English. The success of Faust gave Hayward an assured
position in society, and henceforth he became a regular contributor
to the leading reviews.

By this time he had gained some notoriety as an authority on
gastronomy, and had published his well-known book on " The Art
of Dining." The attention which he devoted to this art, indeed,
was not ill bestowed, for his dinners at his Chambers in the
Temple attracted some of the most distinguished men and women
^of the day, such as Lockhart, Macaulay, Sydney Smith, Lansdowne,
Henry Bulwer, Lord Lyndhurst, and Mrs. Norton. In 1844 Hayward
began to contribute to the Edinburgh Review that series of essays

xix

PREFACE

for which he became so celebrated, and which contain some of his
best work. He died at his rooms at St. James's Street, on
February 2nd, 1882, in his eighty-third year ; a man to be remem-
bered for his brilliant talents, and his generous character, although
to his contemporaries he too often showed that he possessed a
hasty temper, and a biting tongue. Hayward's chief interest in life
seems to have been divided between " Faust," and Gastronomy. In
reprinting his translation it has not been thought necessary to
reproduce his Prefaces, as the purpose for which they were written
has to a great extent passed away. It has been thought desirable also
to abridge his somewhat voluminous notes.

Among the many illustrators of Goethe's Faust, Retzsch was,
perhaps, the earliest, and he is certainly the best known. These
designs in outline, which were published about 1820, were admired
by Shelley and perhaps gave him an interest in the subject. They
were also familiar to the Rossetti's in their childhood. Something has
already been said about the difficulty of translating Goethe's Faust into
the English language. The same difficulties have hitherto beset the
artist who has attempted to illustrate the play. Mr. Pogany, however,
seems to have discovered a new vein, and he has worked it, we think,
with a happier result than any of his numerous predecessors. His
pictures, like the great drama they illustrate, are to a great extent
emblematical ; his schemes of colour reflect the particular emotional
atmosphere of the scenes they represent, and a subtle meaning
appears to be suggested by the merest details. Mr. Pogany's pictures
reveal a deeper symbolism than has been reached by others who
have attempted to illustrate Faust. That picture of Faust and
Marguerite in the Garden, with its delicate evening mist, is a true
lover's dream. Again, turn to Faust and Marguerite in the Summer-
house, and note the gay joyousness of the colour ; note also the
sun-light through the trees in the scene Under the Lime Tree, and
the cold blue tone of despair in the last illustration — all veritable
colour poems. Although Pogany is thoroughly familiar with the
Faust legend, and all that concerns it, he has viewed the subject with
the eyes of one making a venture into a new land of promise, and
this may account for the freshness and originality of his compositions.

September^ 1908. Roger Ingpen.

FAUST

DEDICATION

YE approach again, ye wavering shapes, which once,
in the morning of life, presented yourselves to my
troubled view ! Shall I try, this time, to hold you
fast ? Do I feel my heart still inclined to that
delusion ? Ye crowd upon me ! well then, ye may hold
dominion over me, as ye rise around out of vapour and
mist. My bosom feels youthfully agitated by the magic
breath which atmospheres your train.

Ye bring with you the images of happy days, and many
loved shades arise : like to an ojd half-expired Tradition,
rises First-love, with Friendship, in their company. The
pang is renewed ; the plaint repeats the labyrinthine mazy
course of life, and names the dear ones, who, cheated of
fair hours by fortune, have vanished away before me.

They hear not the following lays — the souls to whom
I sang my first. Dispersed is the friendly throng — the first
echo, alas has died away ! My sorrow voices itself to the
stranger many : their very applause makes my heart sick ;
and all that in other days was gladdened by my song — if
still living, strays scattered through the world.

And a yearning, long unfelt, for that quiet pensive
Spirit-realm seizes me. Tis hovering even now, in half-
formed tones, — my lisping lay, like the i^olian harp. A
tremor seizes me : tear follows tear : the austere heart feels
itself growing mild and soft. What I have, I see as in the
distance ; and what is gone, becomes a reality to me.

PROLOGUE FOR THE THEATRE

Manager — Theatre- Poet — Mbrryman.

Manager.

m\\o have so often stood by
me in need and tribulation, say,
what hopes do you happen to enter-
tain of our undertaking upon German
ground ? I wish very much to please
the multitude, particularly because
it lives and lets live. The posts,
the boards, are put up, and every one looks forward
to a feast. There they sit already, cool, with elevated
brows, and would fain be set a wondering. I know
how the spirit of the people is propitiated ; yet I
have never been in such a dilemma as now. True,
they are not accustomed to the best, but they have
i-ead a terrible deal. How shall we manage it — that
all be fresh and new, and pleasing and instructive,
at once? For assuredly I like to see the multitude,
when the stream rushes toward our booth, and, with
powerfully-repeated undulations, forces itself through the
narrow portal of grace — when, in broad daylight, already
before four, they elbow their way to the paying-place,
and risk breaking their necks for a ticket, as in a famine at

5 B

FAUST

bakers' doors for bread. It is the poet only that works this
miracle on people so various — my friend, oh ! do it to-day !

Poet. Oh! speak not to me of that motley multitude,
at whose very aspect one's spirit takes flight. Veil from
me that undulating throng, which sucks us, against our will,
into the whirlpool. No! conduct me to the quiet, heavenly
nook, where alone pure enjoyment blooms for the poet —
where love and friendship, with godlike hand, create and
cherish our hearts' blessings. Ah! what there hath gushed
from us in the depths of the breast, what the lip stammered
tremblingly to itself — now failing, and now perchance
succeeding — the wild moment's sway swallows up. Often
only when it has endured through years, does it appear in
completed form. What glitters, is born for the moment ;
the genuine remains unlost to posterity.

Merryman. If I could but hear no more about posterity!
Suppose I chose to talk about posterity, who then would make
fun for contemporaries? That they will have — and ought
to have it. The presence of a gallant lad, too, is always
something, I should think. Who knows how to impart himself
agreeably — he will never be soured by popular caprice. He
desires a large circle, to agitate it the more certainly. Then
do but try your best, and show yourself a model. Let
Fancy, with all her choruses, — Reason, Understanding,
Feeling, Passion, but — mark me well — not without Folly,
be heard.

Manager. But, most particularly, let there be incident
enough. People come to look ; their greatest pleasure is to see.
If much is spun ofi^ before their eyes, so that the many can
gape with astonishment, you have then gained in breadth
immediately ; you are a great favourite. You can only
subdue the mass by mass. Each eventually picks out some-
thing for himself. Who brings much, will bring something
to many a one, and all leave the house content. If you

PROLOGUE FOR THE THEATRE

give a piece, give it once in pieces ! With such a hash, you
cannot but succeed. It is easily served out, as easily as
invented. What avails it to present a whole ? the public will
pull it to pieces for you notwithstanding.

Poet. You feel not the baseness of such a handicraft ;
how little that becomes the true artist ! The daubing of
these fine sparks, I see, is already a maxim with you.

Manager. Such a reproof does not mortify me at all.
A man who intends to work properly, must have an eye to
the best tool. Consider, you have soft wood to split ; and
only look whom you are writing for! Whilst one is driven
by ennui, the other comes satiated from a meal of too
many dishes ; and, what is worst of all, very many a one
comes from reading the newspapers. People hurry dissipated
to us, as to masquerades ; and curiosity only wings every
step. The ladies give themselves and their finery as a treat,
and play with us without pay. What are you dreaming
about on your poetical height ? What is it that makes a
full house merry ? Look closely at your patrons ! Half are
cold, half raw. One hopes for a game of cards after the
play ; another, a wild night on the bosom of a wench. Why,
poor fools that ye are, do ye give the sweet Muses much
trouble for such an end ? I tell you, only give more, and more,
and more again ; thus you can never be wide of your mark.
Try only to mystify the people : to satisfy them is hard —
What is come to you ? Delight or pain ?

Poet. Begone and seek thyself another servant ! The
poet, forsooth, is wantonly to sport away for thy sake the
highest right, the right of man, which Nature bestows upon
him ! By what stirs he every heart ? By what subdues he
every element ? Is it not the harmony — which bursts from
out his breast, and sucks the world back again into his heart ?
When Nature, carelessly winding, forces the thread's intermin-
able length upon the spindle ; when the confused multitude of

7 B 2

FAUST

all Beings jangles out of tune and harsh, — ^who, life-infusing
so disposes the ever equably-flowing series, that it moves
rhythmically ? Who calls the Individual to the general
consecration — where it strikes in glorious accords ? Who
bids the tempest rage to passions ? the evening-red glow^ in
the pensive spirit ? Who scatters on the loved one's path
all beauteous blossomings of spring ? Who wreathes the
unmeaning green leaves into a garland of honour for deserts
of all kinds ? Who ensures Olympus ? — associates Gods ?
Man's Power revealed in the Poet.

Merryman. Employ these fine powders then, and carry
on your poetical affairs as one carries on a love-adventure. —
Accidentally one approaches, one feels, one stays, and little
by little one gets entangled. The happiness increases, — then
it is disturbed ; one is delighted, — then comes distress ; and
before one is aware of it, it is even a romance. Let us also
give a play in this manner. Do but grasp into the thick of
human life ! Every one lives it, — to not many is it known ;
and seize it where you will, it is interesting. Little clearness
in motley images ! much falsehood and a spark of truth ! this
is the way to brew the best liquor, which refreshes and edifies
all the world. Then assembles youth's fairest flower to
see your play, and listens to the revelation. Then every
gentle mind sucks melancholy nourishment for itself from out
your work ; then one while this, and one while that, is stirred
up ; each one sees what he carries in his heart. They are as
yet equally ready to weep and to laugh ; they still honour the
soaring, are pleased with the glitter. One who is formed,
there is no such thing as pleasing; one who is forming, will
always be grateful.

Poet. Then give me also back again the times, when I
myself was still forming ; when a fountain of crowded lays
sprang freshly and unbrokenly forth ; when mists veiled the
world before me, — the bud still promised miracles ; when I

PROLOGUE FOR THE THEATRE

gathered the thousand flowers which profusely filled all
the dales! I had nothing, and yet enough, — the longing
after truth, and the pleasure in delusion! Give me back
those impulses untamed, — the deep, pain-fraught happiness, the
energy of hate, the might of love ! — Give me back my youth !

Merrytnan, Youth, my good friend, you want indeed,
when foes press you hard in the fight, — when the loveliest
of lasses cling with ardour round your neck, — when from
afar, the garland of the swift course beckons from the
hard-won goal, — when, after the dance's maddening whirl,
one drinks away the night carousing. But to strike the
familiar lyre with spirit and grace, to sweep along, with
happy wanderings, towards a self-appointed aim;— that, old
gentlemen, is your duty, and we honour you not the less on
that account. Old age does not make childish, as men say ;
it only finds us still as true children.

Manager. Words enough have been interchanged ; let
me now see deeds also. Whilst you are turning compliments,
something useful may be done. What boots it to stand
talking about being in the vein ? The hesitating never is
so. If ye once give yourselves out for poets, — command
poesy. You well know what we want; we would sip strong
drink — now brew away immediately! What is not doing
to-day is not done to-morrow ; and no day should be wasted
in dallying. Resolution should boldly seize the possible by
the forelock at once. She will then not let it go, and
works on, because she cannot help it.

You know, upon our German stage, every one tries what
he likes. Therefore spare me neither scenery nor machinery
upon this day. Use the greater and the lesser light of
heaven ; you are free to squander the stars ; there is no want
of water, fire, rocks, beasts, and birds. So tread, in this
narrow booth, the whole circle of creation ; and travel, with
considerate speed, from Heaven, through the World, to Hell.

.1,

■^

• «

FAUST

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN

The Lord — the Heavenly Hosts. Afterwards
Mephistopheles.

The three Archangels come forward.

Raphael.

sun chimes in, as ever, with the
emulous music of his brother
spheres, and performs his prescribed
journey with thunder-speed. His aspect
gives strength to the angels, though
none can fathom him. Thy inconceivably
sublime works are glorious as on the first day.

Gabriel. And rapid, inconceivably rapid, the pomp
of the earth revolves ; the brightness of paradise
alternates with deep, fearful night. The sea foams
up in broad waves at the deep base of the rocks ; and
rock and sea are whirled on in the ever rapid course
of the spheres.
Michael. And storms are roaring as if in rivalry, from
to land, from land to sea, and form all around a chain

FAUST

of the deepest ferment in their rage. There, flashing
desolation flares before the path of the thunder-clap. But
thy messengers, Lord, respect the mild going of thy day.

The Three. Thy aspect gives strength to the angels,
though none can fathom thee, and all thy sublime works
are glorious as on the first day.

Mephistopheles, Since, Lord, you approach once again,
and inquire how things are going on with us, and on other
occasions were generally not displeased to see me — therefore
is it that you see me also among your suite. Excuse me,
I cannot talk fine, not though the whole circle should cry
scorn on me. My pathos would certainly make you laugh,
had you not left off^ laughing. I have nothing to say about
suns and worlds ; I only mark how men are plaguing
themselves. The little god of the world continues ever of
the same stamp, and is as odd as on the first day. He
would lead a somewhat better life of it, had you not given
him a glimmering of heaven's light. He calls it reason, and
uses it only to be more brutal than every other brute. He
seems to me, with your Grace's leave, like one of the long-
legged grass-hoppers, which is ever flying, and bounding as
it flies, and then sings its old song in the grass ; — and would
that he did but lie always in the grass! He thrusts his
nose into every puddle.

The Lord, Have you nothing else to say to me? Are
you always coming for no other purpose than to complain ?
Is nothing ever to your liking upon earth ?

Mephistoplieles. No, Lord! I find things there, as ever,
miserably bad. Men, in their days of wretchedness, move
my pity; even I myself have not the heart to torment the
poor things.

The Lord. Do you know Faust ?

Mephistopheles. The Doctor?

The Lord. My servant ?

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN

Mephistuplieles. Verily! he serves you after a fashion of
his own. The fool's meat and drink are not of earth. The
ferment impels him towards the far away. He himself is half
conscious of his madness. Of heaven — he demands its
brightest stars; and of earth — its every highest enjoyment;
and all the near, and all the far, contents not his deeply-
agitated breast.

The Lord. Although he does but serve me in perplexity
now, I shall soon lead him into light. When the tree buds,
the gardener knows that blossom and fruit will deck the
coming years.

Mephistopheles. What will you wager? you shall lose
him yet, if you give me leave to guide him quietly my own
way.

The Lord. So long as he lives upon the earth, so long be
it not forbidden to thee. Man is liable to error, whilst his
struggle lasts.

MephistopJteles. I am much obliged to you for that; for
I have never had any fancy for the dead. I like plump, fresh
cheeks the best. I am not at home to a corpse. I am like
the cat; with the mouse.

The Lord. Enough, it is permitted thee. Divert this
spirit from his original source, and bear him, if thou canst
seize him, down on thy own path with thee. And stand
abashed, when thou are compelled to own — a good man, in
his dark strivings, may still be conscious of the right way.

Mephistopheles. Well, well, — only it will not last long.
I am not at all in pain for my wager. Should I succeed,
excuse my triumphing with my whole soul. Dust shall he
eat, and with a relish, like my cousin, the renowned snake.

The Lord. There also you are free to act as you like.
I have never hated the like of you. Of all the spirits that
deny, the scoffer is the least offensive to me. Man's activity
is all too prone to slumber : he soon gets fond of unconditional

FAUST

repose; I am therefore glad to give him a companion, who
stirs and works, and must, as devil, be doing. But ye, the
true children of heaven, rejoice in the living profusion of
beauty. The creative essence, which works and lives through
all time, embrace you within the happy bounds of love; and
what hovers in changeful seeming, do ye fix firm with
everlasting thoughts.

[Heaven closes, the Archangels disperse.

Mephistopheles (alone). I like to see the Ancient One
occasionally, and take care not to break with him. It is
really civil in so great a Lord, to speak so kindly with the
Devil himself.

THE DRAMA

NIGHT

Faust in a high-vaulted narrow Gothic ciiamber, seated
restlessly at his desk.
Faust.

HAVE now, alas, by zealous exertion,

thoroughly mastered philosophy, the

jurist's craft, and medicine, — and to my

sorrow, theology too. Here 1 stand,

poor fool that I am, just as wise as

before. I am called Master, ay, and

Doctor, and have now for nearly ten

years been leading my pupils about —

up and down, crossways and crooked ways — by the

nose ; and see that we can know nothing ! This it

is that almost burns up the heart within me. True, I

am cleverer than all the solemn triflers — doctors,

masters, writers, and priests. No doubts nor scruples

trouble me ; I fear neither hell nor the devil. For

this very reason is all joy torn from me. I no longer

fancy I know anything worth knowing ; I no longer fancy

I could teach anything to better and to convert mankind.

Then I have neither land nor money, nor honour and rank

FAUST

in the world. No dog would like to live so any longer. I
have therefore devoted myself to magic — whether, through
the power and voice of the Spirit, many a mystery might
not become known to me ; that I may no longer, with bitter
sweat, be obliged to speak of what I do not know ; that I
may learn what holds the world together in its inmost core,
see all the springs and seeds of production, and drive no
longer a paltry traffic in words.

Oh ! would that thou, radiant moonlight, wert looking
for the last time upon my misery ; thou, for whom I have
sat watching so many a midnight at this desk ; then, over
books and papers, melancholy friend, didst thou appear to
me ! Oh ! that I might wander on the mountain-tops in
thy loved light — hover with spirits round the mountain caves —
flit over the fields in thy glimmer, and, disencumbered from
all the fumes of knowledge, bathe myself sound in thy dew !

Woe is me ! am I still penned up in this dungeon ?
accursed, musty, walled hole ! — where even the precious light
of heaven breaks mournfully through painted panes, stinted
by this heap of books, — which worms eat — dust begrimes —
which, up to the very top of the vault, a smoke-smeared
paper encompasses ; with glasses, boxes ranged round, with
instruments piled up on all sides, ancestral lumber stuffed
in with the rest. This is thy world, and a precious world
it is!

And dost thou still ask, why thy heart flutters confinedly
in thy bosom ? — ^Why a vague aching deadens within thee
every stirring principle of life ? — Instead of the animated
nature, for which God made man, thou hast nought around
thee but beasts' skeletons and dead men's bones, in smoke
and mould.

Up ! away ! out into the wide world ! And this mysterious
book, from Nostradamus' own hand, is it not guide enough
for thee ! Thou then knowest the course of the stars, and,

NIGHT

when nature instructs thee, the soul's essence then rises up
to thee, as one spirit speaks to another. Vain ! that dull
poring here expounds the holy signs to thee ! Ye are hovering,
ye Spirits, near me ; answer me if you hear me.

[He opens the book and perceives the sign of the Macrocosm.

Ah ! what rapture thrills all at once through all my
senses at this sight ! I feel fresh, hallowed life-joy, new-
glowing, shoot through nerve and vein. Was it a god
that traced these signs ? — which still the storm within me,
fill my poor heart with gladness, and, by a mystical intuition,
unveil the powers of nature all around me. Am I a God?
All grows so bright ! I see, in these pure lines. Nature
herself working in my soul's presence. Now for the first
time do I conceive what the sage saith, — " The spirit-world
is not closed. Thy sense is shut, thy heart is dead ! Up,
acolyte ! bathe, untired, thy earthly breast in the morning-red."

[He contemplates the sign.

How all weaves itself into the whole ; one works and
lives in the other. How heavenly powers ascend and descend,
and reach each other the golden buckets, — with bliss-exhaling
pinions, press from heaven through earth, all ringing
harmoniously through the All.

What a show ! but Ah ! a show only ! Where shall I
seize thee, infinite nature ? Ye breasts, where ? ye sources
of all life, on which hang heaven and earth, towards which
the blighted breast presses — ye gush, ye suckle, and am I
thus languishing in vain ?

[He turf IS over the book indignantly, and sees the sign of the
Spirit of the Earth.

How differently this sign affects me ! Thou, Spirit of
the Earth, art nearer to me. Already do I feel my energies
exalted, already glow as with new wine ; I feel courage to
venture into the world ; to endure earthly weal, earthly woe ;
to wrestle with storms, and stand unshaken mid the

FAUST

shipwreck's crash. — Clouds thicken over me ; the moon pales
her light ; the lamp dies away ; exhalations arise ; red beams
flash round my head ; a cold shuddering flickers down from
the vaulted roof and fastens on me ! I feel it — thou art
flitting round me, prayer-compelled Spirit. Unveil thyself !
Ah ! what a tearing in my heart — all my senses are up-
stirring to new sensations ! I feel my whole heart
surrendered to thee. Thou must — thou must ! — should it cost
me my life.

[He seizes the book and pronounces mystically the sign of the
Spirit. A red flame flashes up ; the Spirit appears in the
flame.

Spirit. Who calls to me ?

Faust {averting his face). Horrible vision !

Spirit Thou hast compelled me hither, by dint of long
sucking at my sphere. And now —

Faust. Torture ! I endure thee not.

Spirit. Thou, prayest, panting, to see me, to hear my
voice, to see my face. Thy powerful invocation works upon
me. I am here ! What pitiful terror seizes thee, the demigod !
Where is the soul's calling ? Where is the breast, that
created a world in itself, and upbore and cherished it ? which,
with tremors of delight, swelled to lift itself to a level with
us, the Spirits. Where art thou, Faust, whose voice rang
to me, who pressed towards me with all his energies ? Art
thou he ? thou, who, at the bare perception of my breath,
art shivering through all the depths of life, a trembling,
writhing worm ?

Faust. Shall I yield to thee, child of fire ? I am he,
am Faust thy equal.

Spirit. In the tides of life.

In the storm of action,
I am tossed up and down,
I drift hither and thither,

Faastaiul tht SpMt ef tht Earth,

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4- ».

NIGHT

Birth and grave,

An eternal sea,

A changeful weaving,

A glowing life —
Thus I work at the whizzing loom of time,
And weave the living clothing of the Deity.
Faust. Busy spirit, thou who sweepest round the wide
world, how near I feel to thee!

Spirit. Thou art mate for the Spirit whom thou

COnceivest, not for me. [The Spirit vanishes.

Faust {collapsing). Not for thee ! For whom then ?
I, the image of the Deity, and not mate for even thee!

[A knocking at the door.

Oh, death ! I know it : that is my amanuensis. My fairest
fortune is turned to naught. That the un-idea'd groveller
must disturb this fulness of visions !

[Wagner enters in his dressing-gown and night-cap, with a
lamp in his hand. Faust turns round in displeasure.

Wagner. Excuse me — I hear you declaiming ; you were
surely reading a Greek tragedy. I should like to improve
myself in this art, for now-a-days it influences a good deal.
I have often heard say, a player might instruct a priest.

Faust. Yes, when the priest is a player, as may likely
enough come to pass occasionally.

Wagner. Ah ! when a man is so confined to his study,
and hardly sees the world of a holyday — hardly through a
telescope, only from afar — how is he to lead it by persuasion ?

Faust. If you do not feel it, you will not get it by
hunting for it,— if it does not gush from the soul, and
subdue the hearts of all hearers with original delight. Sit
at it for ever — glue together — cook up a hash from the feast
of others, and blow the paltry flames out of your own little
heap of ashes ! You may gain the admiration of children
and apes, if you have a stomach for it; but you will never

FAUST

touch the hearts of others, if it does not flow fresh from
your own.

Wagner. But it is elocution that makes the orator's
success. I feel well that I am still far behindhand.

Faust. Try what can be got by honest means — Be no
tinkling fool! — Reason and good sense are expressed with
little art. And when you are seriously intent on saying
something, is it necessary to hunt for words ? Your speeches,
I say, which are so glittering, in which ye crisp the shreds
of humanity, are unrefreshing as the mist-wind which whistles
through the withered leaves in autumn.

Wagner. Oh, God ! art is long, and our life is short.
Often indeed, during my critical studies, do I suffer both
in head and heart ! How hard it is to compass the means
by which one mounts to the fountain-head ; and before he
has got half way, a poor devil must probably die !

Faust. Is parchment the holy well, a drink from which
allays the thirst for ever ? Thou hast not gained refreshment,
if it gushes not from thy own soul.

Wagner. Excuse me ! it is a great pleasure to transport
one's-self into the spirit of the times ; to see how a wise
man has thought before us, and to what a glorious height
we have at last carried it.

Faust. Oh, yes, up to the very stars. My friend, the
past ages are to us a book with seven seals. What you term
the spirit of the times, is at bottom only your own spirit ;
in which the times are reflected. A miserable exhibition,
too, it frequently is ! One runs away from it at the first
glance! A dirt-tub and a lumber-room! — and, at best, a
puppet-show play, with fine pragmatical saws, such as may
happen to sound well in the mouths of the puppets !

Wagner. But the world! the heart and mind of man!
every one would like to know something about that.

Faust. Aye, what is called knowing! Who dares call

NIGHT

the child by its true name ? The few who have ever known
anything about it, who sillily enough did not keep a guard
over their full hearts, who revealed what they had felt and
seen to the multitude, — these, time immemorial, have been
crucified and burned. I beg, friend — the night is far
advanced — for the present we must break off.

Wagner. I could fain have kept waking to converse
with you so learnedly. To-morrow, however, the first day
of Easter, permit me a question or two more. Zealously
have I devoted myself to study. True, I know much ; but
I would fain know all. [Exit.

Faust (alone). How all hope only fluits not the brain,
which clings perseveringly to trash, — gropes with greedy
hand for treasures, and exults at finding earth-worms!

Dare such a human voice sound here, where all around
me teemed with spirits ? Yet ah, this once I thank thee,
thou poorest of all the sons of earth. Thou didst snatch
me from despair, which had well-nigh got the better of
sense. Alas ! the vision was so giant-great, that I felt quite
shrunk into a dwarf.

I, formed in God's own image, who already thought
myself near to the mirror of eternal truth; who revelled, in
heaven's lustre and clearness, with the earthly part of me
stripped off ; I, more than cherub, whose free spirit already,
in its imaginative soarings, aspired to glide through nature's
veins, and, in creating, enjoy the life of gods — how must I
atone for it! a thunder- word has swept me wide away.

I dare not presume to mate myself with thee. If I
have possessed the power to draw thee to me, I had no
power to hold thee. In that blest moment, I felt so little,
so great; you cruelly thrust me back upon the uncertain lot
of humanity. Who will teach me? What am I to shun?
Must I obey that impulse? Alas! our actions, equally with
our sufferings, clog the course of our lives.

21 c

FAUST

Something foreign, and more foreign, is ever clinging to
the noblest conception the mind can form. When we have
attained to the good of this world, what is better is termed
falsehood and vanity. The glorious feelings which gave us
life, grow torpid in the wordly bustle.

If phantasy, at one time, on daring wing, and full of
hope, dilates to infinity, — a little space is now enough for
her, when venture after venture has been wrecked in the
whirlpool of time. Care straightway nestles in the depths
of the heart, hatches vague tortures there, rocks herself
restlessly, and frightens joy and peace away. She is ever
putting on new ma^ks; she may appear as house and land,
as wife and child, as fire, water, dagger and poison. You
tremble before all that does not befall you, and must be
always wailing what you never lose.

I am not like the godheads; I feel it but too deeply. I
am like the worm, which drags itself through the dust, —
which, as it seeks its living in the dust, is crushed and buried
by the step of the passer-by.

Is it not dust? all that in a hundred shelves contracts
this lofty wall — the frippery, which, with its thousand forms
of emptiness, cramps me up in this moth-world ? Shall I
find what I want here ? Must I go on reading in a
thousand books, that men have everywhere been miserable,
that now and then there has been a happy one.

Thou, hollow skull, what mean'st thou by that grin ? but
that thy brain, like mine, was once bewildered, — sought the
bright day, and, with an ardent longing after truth, went
miserably astray in the twilight ?

Ye instruments are surely mocking me, with your wheels
and cogs, cylinders and collars. I stood at the gate, ye
were to be the key; true, your wards are curiously twisted,
but you raise not the bolt. Inscrutable at broad day, nature
does not suffer herself to be robbed of her veil; and what

NIGHT

she does not choose to reveal to thy mind, thou wilt not
wrest from her by levers and screws.

Thou, antiquated lumber, which I have never used, thou
art here only because my father had occasion for you.
Thou, old roll, hast been growing smoke-besmeared since
the dim lamp first smouldered at this desk. Far better
would it be for me to have squandered away the little I
possess, than to be sweating here under the burthen of that
little. To possess what thou hast inherited from thy sires,
enjoy it. What one does not profit by, is an oppressive
burden ; what the moment brings forth, that only can it
profit by.

But why are my looks fastened on that spot : is that
phial there a magnet to my eyes ? Why, of a sudden, is all
so exquisitely bright, as when the moonlight breathes round
one benighted in the wood?

I hail thee, thou precious phial, which I now take down
with reverence ; in thee I honour the wit and art of man.
Thou abstraction of kind soporific juices, thou concentration
of all refined deadly essences, show thy favour to thy master !
I see thee, and the pang is mitigated ; I grasp thee, and the
struggle abates ; the spirit's flood-tide ebbs by degrees. I
am beckoned out into the wide sea; the glassy wave glitters
at my feet ; another day invites to other shores.

A chariot of fire waves, on light pinions, down to me.
I feel prepared to permeate the realms of space, on a new
track, to new spheres of pure activity. This sublime
existence, this god-like beatitude ! And thou, worm but
now, dost thou merit it ? Aye, only resolutely turn thy back
on the lovely sun of this earth! Dare to tear up the gates
which each willingly slinks by! Now is the time to show
by deeds that man's dignity yields not to God's sublimity, —
to quail not in presence of that dark abyss, in which
phantasy damns itself to its own torments — to struggle

33 g^

FAUST

onwards to that pass, round whose narrow mouth all Hell
is flaming ; calmly to resolve upon the step, even at the
risk of dropping into nothingness.

Now come down, pure crystal goblet, on which I have
not thought for many a year, — forth from your old
receptacle ! You glittered at my father's festivities ; you
gladdened the grave guests, as one passed you to the other.
The gorgeousness of the many artfully-wrought images, —
the drinker's duty to explain them in rhyme, to empty the
contents at a draught, — remind me of many a night of my
youth. I shall not now pass you to a neighbour : I shall
not now display my wit on your devices. Here is a juice
which soon intoxicates. It fills your cavity with its brown
flood. Be this last draught — which I have brewed, which I
choose — quaffed, with my whole soul, as a solemn festal
greeting to the morn.

[He places the goblet to his mouth. The ringing of bells
and singing of choruses.

CHORUS OP ANOBLS.

Christ 18 arisen I
Joy to the mortal,
Whom the corrupting,
Creeping, hereditary
Imperfections enveloped.

Faust. What deep humming, what clear strain, draws
irresistibly the goblet from my mouth? Are ye hollow-
sounding bells already proclaiming the first festal hour of
Easter? Are ye choruses already singing the comforting
hymn, which once, round the night of the sepulchre, pealed
forth, from angel lips, assurance to a new covenant !

CHORUS OP WOMEN.

With spices

Had we embalmed him ;
We, his faithful ones,
Had laid him out.

NIGHT

Clothes and bands
Cleanlily swathed we round;
Ah ! and we find
Christ no more here I

CHORUS OP ANGELS.

Christ is arisen !
Happy the loving one,
Who the afflicting,
Wholesome and chastening
Trial has stood!

Faust. Why, ye heavenly tones, subduing and soft, do
you seek me out in the dust ? Peal out, where weak men
are to be found! I hear the message, but want faith.
Miracle is the pet child of faith. I dare not aspire to those
spheres from whence the glad tidings sound ; and yet,
accustomed to this sound from infancy, it even now calls
me back to life. In other days, the kiss of heavenly love
descended upon me in the solemn stillness of the Sabbath;
then the full-toned bell sounded so fraught with mystic
meaning, and a prayer was intense enjoyment, A longing,
inconceivably sweet, drove me forth to wander over wood
and plain, and amidst a thousand burning tears, I felt a
world rise up to me. This anthem harbingered the gay
sports of youth, the unchecked happiness of spring festivity.
Recollection now holds me back, with childlike feeling, from
the last decisive step. Oh ! sound on, ye sweet heavenly
strains ! The tear is flowing, earth has me again.

CHORUS OP DISCIPLES.

The Buried One,

Already on high,

Living, sublime,

Has gloriously raised himself!

He is, in reviving bliss.

Near to creating joy.

Ah I on earth's bosom

Are we for suffering here !

FAUST

He left ut, his own.
Languishing here below!
Alas ! we weep over.
Master, thy happy lot !

CHORUS OP ASOBLS.
Christ is arisen
Out of corruption's lap.
Joyfully tear yourselves
Loose from your bonds!
Ye, in deeds giving praise to bin
Love manifesting.
Breaking bread brethren -like.
Travelling and preaching him.
Bliss promising —
You is the master ni^.
For you is he here I

BEFORE THE GATE

Promenaders of all kinds pass out.
Some Mechanics.

that way ?

Others. We are going up to the
Jiigerhaus.
Tlie Fonner. But we are going to the
mill.

A Mechanic. I advise you to go to the
Wasserhof.

A Second. The road is not at all pleasant.
TJie otlters. What shall you do then f
A Third. I am going with the others.
A Fourth. Come up to Burghdorf ; you
are there sure of finding the prettiest girls
and the best beer, and rows of the first order.
A Fifth. You wild fellow, is your skin itching for the
third time ? I don't like going there ; I have a horror of
that place.

Servant Girl. No, no, I shall return to the town.
Anot/ier. We shall find him to a certainty by those
poplars.

T/ie First. That is no great gain for me. He will
walk by your side. With you alone does he dance upon
the green. What have I to do with your pleasures?
a?

FAUST

The Second. He is sure not to be alone to-day. The
curly-head, he said, would be with him.

Student. The devil ! how the brave wenches step out;
come along, brother, we must go with them. Strong beer,
stinging tobacco, and a girl in full trim, — that now is my
taste.

Citizens' Daughters. Now do but look at those fine
lads! It is really a shame. They might have the best of
company, and are running after these servant-girls.

Second Student to the First. Not so fast ! there are
two coming up behind ; they are trimly dressed out. One
of them is my neighbour ; I have a great liking for the girl.
They are walking in their quiet way, and yet will suffer us
to join them in the end.

The First. No, brother. I do not like to be under
restraint. Quick, lest we lose the game. The hand that
twirls the mop on a Saturday, will fondle you best on Sundays

Townsman. No, the new Burgomaster is not to my
taste ; now that he has become so, he is daily getting
bolder ; and what is he doing for the town ? Is it not
growing worse every day ? One is obliged to submit to
more restraints than ever, and pay more than in any time
before.

Beggar (sings). Ye good gentlemen, ye lovely ladies,
so trimly dressed and rosy cheeked, be pleased to look upon
me, to regard and relieve my wants. Do not suffer me to
sing here in vain. The free-handed only is light-hearted.
Be the day, which is a holiday to all, a harvest-day to me.

Another Townsman. I know nothing better on Sundays
and holidays than a chat of war and war's alarms, when
people are fighting, behind, far away in Turkey. A man
stands at the window, takes off his glass, and sees the
painted vessels glide down the river ; then returns home
glad at heart at eve, and blesses peace and times of peace.

BEFORE THE GATE

Third Toxvnsman. Aye, neighbour, I have no objection
to that ; they may break one another's heads, and turn
everything topsy-turvy, for aught I care; only let things at
home remain as they are.

An Old Woman to the Citizens' Daughters. Hey dey:
how smart ! the pretty young creatures. Who would not be
smitten with you ? Only not so proud ! it is all very well ;
and what you wish, I should know how to put you in the
way of getting.

Citizen^s Daughter. Come along, Agatha. I take care
not to be seen with such witches in public; true, on Saint
Andrew's eve, she showed me my future sweetheart in flesh
and blood.

The other. She showed me mine in the glass, soldier-like,
with other bold fellows ; I look around, I seek him everywhere,
but I can never meet with him.
Soldier.

Towns with lofty
Walls and battlements.
Maidens with proud
Scornful thoughts,
I fain would win.
Bold the adventure.
Noble the reward.

And the trumpets

Are our summoners

As to joy

So to death.

That is a storming.

That is a life for you!

Maidens and towns
Must surrender.

FAUST

Bold the adventure,
Noble the reward —
And the soldiers
Are ofiF.

Faust and Wagner.

Faust. River and rivulet are freed from ice by the gay
quickening glance of the spring. The joys of hope are
budding in the dale. Old winter, in his weakness, has
retreated to the bleak mountains ; from thence he sends, in
his flight, nothing but impotent showers of hail, in flakes,
over the green-growing meadows. But the Sun endures no
white. Production and growth are everywhere stirring ; he
is about to enliven everything with colours. The landscape
wants flowers ; he takes gaily-dressed men and women
instead. Turn and look back from this rising ground upon
the town. Forth from the gloomy portal presses a motley
crowd. Every one suns himself so willingly to-day. They
celebrate the rising of the Lord, for they themselves have
arisen ; — from the damp rooms of mean houses, from the
bondage of mechanical drudgery, from the confinement of
gables and roofs, from the stifling narrowness of streets,
from the venerable gloom of churches, are they all raised
up to the open light of day. But look, look ! how quickly
the mass scatters itself through the gardens and fields ; how
the river, in breadth and length, tosses many a merry bark
upon its surface, and how this last wherry, overladen almost
to sinking, moves off^. Even from the farthest paths of the
mountain, gay-coloured dresses glance upon us. I hear
already the bustle of the village ; here is the true heaven
of the multitude ; big and little are huzzaing joyously. Here,
I am a man — here, I may be one.

Wagoner. To walk with you, Sir Doctor, is honour and
profit. But I would not lose myself here alone, because I

BEFORE THE GATE

am an enemy to coarseness of every sort. Fiddling, shouting,
skittle-playing, are sounds thoroughly detestable to me.
People run riot as if the devil was driving them, and call it
merriment, call it singing.

RUSTICS UNDER THE LIME TREE.

DANCE AND BONO.

The swain dressed himself out for the dance,
With party-coloured jacket, ribbon and garland,
Smartly was he dressed I
The ring round the lime-tree w^as already full,
And all were dancing like mad.
Huzza ! Huzza I
Tira-lira-hara-la I
Merrily went the fiddle-stick.

He pressed eagerly in.
Gave a maiden a push
With his elbow ;
The buxom girl turned round
And said — " Now that I call stupid."
Huzza I Huzza!
Tira-lira-hara-la I
" Don't be so ill bred."

Yet nimbly sped it in the ring ;
They turned right, they turned left.
And all the petticoats were flying.
They grew red, they grew warm,
And rested panting arm-in-arm.
Huzza! Huzza!
Tira-lira-hara-la !
And elbow on hip.

" Have done now ! don't be so fond ! "
How many a man has cajoled and
Deceived his betrothed.
But he coaxed her aside.
And far and wide echoed from the lime-tree
Huzza! Huzza!
Tira-lira-hara-la !
Shouts and fiddle-sticks.

FAUST

Old Peasant. Doctor, this is really good of you, not to
scorn us to-day, and great scholar as you are, to mingle in
this crowd. Take then the fairest jug, which we have filled
with fresh liquor : I pledge you in it, and pray aloud that
it may do more than quench your thirst — may the number
of drops which it holds be added to your days.

Fatist. I accept the refreshing draught, and wish you
all health and happiness in return.

[The people collect round him.

Old Peasant. Of a surety it is well done of you, to
appear on this glad day. You have been our friend in evil
days, too, before now. Many a one stands here alive whom
your father tore from the hot fever's rage, when he stayed
the pestilence. You too, at that time a young man, went
into every sick house : many a dead body was borne forth,
but you came out safe. You endured many a sore trial. The
Helper above helped the helper.

All. Health to the tried friend — may he long have the
power to help !

Faust. Bend before Him on high, who teaches how to

help, and sends help. [He proceeds with Wagner.

Wagfter. What a feeling, great man, must you experience
at the honours paid you by this multitude. Oh, happy he
who can turn his gifts to so good an account. The father
points you out to his boy ; all ask, and press, and hurry
round. The fiddle stops, the dancer pauses. As you go by,
they range themselves in rows, caps fly into the air, and
they all but bend the knee as if the Host were passing.

Faust. Only a few steps further, up to that stone
yonder ! Here we will rest from our walk. Here many a
time have I sat, thoughtful and solitary, and mortified myself
with prayer and fasting. Rich in hope, firm in faith, I
thought to extort the stoppage of that pestilence from the
Lord of Heaven, with tears, and sighs, and wringing of

BEFORE THE GATE

hands. The applause of the multitude now sounds to me
like derision. Oh ! couldst thou read in my inmost soul, how
little father and son have merited such an honour! My
father was a worthy, sombre man, who, honestly but in his
own way, meditated, with whimsical application, on nature
and her hallowed circles ; who, in the company of adepts,
shut himself up in the dark laboratory, and fused contraries
together after numberless recipes. There was a red lion, a
bold lover, married to the lily in the tepid bath, and then
both, with open flame, tortured from one bridal chamber to
another. If the young queen, with varied hues, then
appeared in the glass — this was the physic ; the patients
died, and no one inquired who recovered. Thus did we, with
hellish electuaries, rage in these vales and mountains far
worse than the pestilence. I myself have given the poison
to thousands ; they pined away, and I must survive to hear
the reckless murderers praised !

Wagner. How can you make yourself uneasy on that
account ? Is it not enough for a good man to practice
conscientiously and scrupulously the art that has been handed
over to him ? If, in youth, you honour your father, you will
willingly learn from him : if, in manhood, you extend the
bounds of knowledge, your son may mount still higher than
you.

Faust. Oh, happy he, who can still hope to emerge
from this sea of error ! We would use the very thing we
know not, and cannot use what we know. But let us not
embitter the blessing of this hour by such melancholy
reflections. See, how the green-girt cottages shimmer in
the setting Sun ! He bends and sinks — the day is overlived.
Yonder he hurries off, and quickens other life. Oh ! that I
have no wing to lift me from the ground, to struggle after,
for ever after, him! I should see, in everlasting evening
beams, the stilly world at my feet, — every height on fire, —

FAUST

every vale in repose, — the silver brook flowing into golden
streams. The rugged mountain, with all its dark defiles,
would not then break my godlike course. — Already the sea,
with its heated bays, opens on my enraptured sight. Yet
the god seems at last to sink away. But the new impulse
wakes. I hurry on to drink his everlasting light,— the day
before me and the night behind, — the heavens above, and
under me the waves. — A glorious dream ! as it is passing,
he is gone. Alas, no bodily wing will so easily keep
pace with the wings of the mind. Yet it is the inborn
tendency of our being for feeling to strive upwards and
onwards; when, over us, lost in the blue expanse, the lark
sings its trilling lay : when, over rugged pine-covered heights,
the outspread eagle soars ; and over marsh and sea, the
crane struggles onwards to her home.

Wagner. I myself have often had my whimsical
moments, but I never yet experienced an impulse of the
kind. One soon looks one's fill of woods and fields, I shall
never envy the wings of the bird. How difi^erently the
pleasures of the mind bear us, from book to book, from
page to page. With them, winter nights become cheerful
and bright, a happy life warms every limb, and, ah! when
you actually unroll a precious manuscript, all heaven comes
down to you.

Faust. Thou art conscious only of one impulse. Oh,
never become acquainted with the other ! Two souls, alas,
dwell in my breast: the one would fain separate itself from
the other. The one clings, with persevering fondness, to
the world, with organs like cramps of steel : the other lifts
itself energetically from the mist to the realms of an exalted
ancestry. Oh! if there be spirits in the air, which hover
ruling 'twixt earth and heaven, descend ye, from your golden
atmosphere, and lead me oflF to a new variegated life. Aye,
were but a magic mantle mine, and could it bear me into

BEFORE THE GATE

foreign lands, I would not part with it for the costliest
garments — not for a king's mantle.

Wagner. Invoke not the well-known troop, which
diffuses itself, streaming, through the atmosphere, and
prepares danger in a thousand forms, from every quarter,
to man. The sharp-fanged spirits, with arrowy tongues,
press upon you from the north; from the east, they come
parching, and feed upon your lungs. If the south sends from
the desert those which heap fire after fire upon thy brain,
the west brings the swarm which only refreshes, to drown
fields, meadows, and yourself. They are fond of listening,
ever keenly alive for mischief: they obey with pleasure,
because they take pleasure to delude ; they feign to be sent
from heaven, and lisp like angels when they lie. But let
us be going; the earth is already grown grey, the air is
chill, the mist is falling; it is only in the evening that we
set a proper value on our homes. Why do you stand still,
and gaze with astonishment thus? What can thus fix your
attention in the gloaming?

Faust. Seest thou the black dog ranging through the
corn and stubble?

Wagner. I saw him long ago ; he did not strike me
as any thing particular.

Faust. Mark him well ! for what do you take the
brute ?

Wagner. For a poodle, who, in his way, is puzzling out
the track of his master.

Faust. Dost thou mark how, in wide spiral curves, he
quests round and ever nearer us ? and, if I err not, a line of
fire follows upon his track.

Wagner. I see nothing but a black poodle; you may
be deceived by some optical illusion.

Faust. It appears to me, that he is drawing light
magical nooses, to form a coil around our feet.

FAUST

Wagner. I see him bounding hesitatingly and shily
around us, because, instead of his master, he sees two
strangers.

Faust. The circle grows narrow ; he is already close.

Wagner. You see, it is a dog, and no spirit. He
growls and hesitates, crouches on his belly and wags with
his tail — all as dogs are wont to do.

Faust. Come to us! — Hither!

Wagner. It's a droll creature of a dog. Stand still,
and he will sit on his hind legs ; speak to him, and he will
jump upon you ; lose aught, and he will fetch it to you, and
jump into the water for your stick.

Faust. I believe you are right; I find no trace of a
spirit, and all is training.

Wagner. Even a wise man may become attached to a
dog when he is well brought up. And he richly deserves all
your favour, — he, the accomplished pupil of your students,

as he is. [They enter the gate of the town.

. Sf.;i\

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FAUST'S STUDY

Faust enterit^ xxnth the poodle.

HAVE left plain and meadow veiled in

deep night, which wakes the better

soul within us with a holy feeling of

foreboding awe. Wild desires are now

sunk in sleep, with every deed of

violence : the love of man is stirring

— the love of God is stirring now.

Be quiet, poodle, run not hither and thither.

What are you snuffling at on the threshold ? Lie down

behind the stove ; there is my best cushion for you. As

without, upon the mountain path, you amused us by

running and gambolling, so now receive my kindness

as a welcome quiet guest.

Ah ! when the lamp is again burning friendily In
oac narrow cell, then all becomes clear in our bosom,
— in the heart that knows itself. Reason begins to speak,
and hope to bloom, again ; we yearn for the streams — oh
yes, for the fountain, of life.

Growl not, poodle; the brutish sound ill harmonises
with the hallowed tones which now possess my whole soul.
We are accustomed to see men deride what they do not
understand- — to see them snarl at the good and beautiful,
which is often troublesome to them, Is the dog disposed to
snarl at it like them ? But ah ! I feel already that, much as
37 o

FAUST

I may wish for it, contentment wells no longer from my
breast. Yet why must the stream be so soon dried up, and
we again lie thirsting ? I have had so much experience of
that! This want, however, admits of being compensated.
We learn to prize that which is not of this earth ; we long
for revelation, which nowhere burns more majestically or
more beautifully than in the New Testament. I feel impelled
to open the original text — to translate for once with upright
feeling, the sacred original into my darling German.

[He opens a volume^ and disposes himself for
the task.

It is written : " In the beginning was the Word." Here
I am already at a stand — who will help me on ? I cannot
possibly value the Word so highly ; I must translate it
differently, if I am truly inspired by the spirit. It is
written: "In the beginning was the Sense." Consider well
the first line, that your pen be not over hasty. Is it the
sense that influences and produces every thing? It should
stand thus: "In the beginning was the Power." Yet, even
as I am writing down this, something warns me not to keep
to it. The spirit comes to my aid ! At once I see my way,
and write confidently: "In the beginning was the Deed."

If I am to share the chamber with you, poodle, cease
your howling — cease your barking. I cannot endure so
troublesome a companion near to me. One of us two must
quit the cell. It is with reluctance that I withdraw the
rights of hospitality; the door is open — the way is clear for
you. But what do I see ! Can that come to pass by
natural means ? Is it shadow — is it reality ? How long and
broad my poodle grows! He raises himself powerfully; that
is not the form of a dog! What a phantom I have brought
into the house! — he looks already like a hippopotamus, with
fiery eyes, terrific teeth. Ah ! I am sure of thee ! Solomon's
key is good for such a half-hellish brood.

FAUST'S STUDY

spirits in the passage.

One is caught within !
Stay without, follow none
As in the gin the fox,
Quakes an old lynx of hell

But take heed !
Hover thither, hover back.

Up and down.
And he is loose!
If ye can aid him.
Leave him not in the lurch
For he has already done
Much to serve us.
Faust. First to confront the beast,

Use I the spell of the four:

Salamander shall glow,

Undine twine,

Sylph vanish,

Kobold be moving
Who did not know

The elements.
Their power and properties,

Were no master

Over the spirits.

Vanish in flame.

Salamander !
Rushingly flow together,

Undine !
Shine in meteor beauty,

Sylph !
Bring homely help,
Incubus! Incubus!
Step foilh and make an end of it.

39 D 2

FAUST

No one of the four sticks in the beast. He lies
undisturbed and grins at me. I have not yet made him feel.
Thou shalt hear me conjure stronger.

Art thou, fellow,

A scapeling from hell!

Then see this sign !

To which bend the dark troop.

He is already swelling up with bristling hair.

Reprobate !

Can'st thou read him ? —

The unoriginated,

Unpronounceable,

Through all heaven diffused.

Vilely transpierced ?

Driven behind the stove, it is swelling like an elephant ;
it fills the whole space, it is about to vanish into mist. Rise
not to the ceiling ! Down at thy master's feet ! Thou see'st
I do not threaten in vain. I will scorch thee with holy fire.
Wait not for the thrice growing light. Wait not for the
strongest of my spells.

[Mephistopheles comes forward as the mist sinks, in the dress

of a travelling scholar, from behind the stove.

Wherefore such a fuss? What may be your pleasure?

Faust. This, then, was the kernel of the poodle ! A
travelling scholar ? The casus makes me laugh.

Mephistopheles. I salute your learned worship. You
have made me sweat with a vengeance.

Faust. What is thy name?

Mephistoplieles. The question strikes me as trifling for
one who rates the Word so low ; who, far estranged from
all mere outward seeming, looks only to the essence of things.

'^ephistophelss

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FAUSTS STUDY

Faust. With such gentlemen as you, one may generally
learn the essence from the name, since it appears but too
plainly, if your name be fly-god, destroyer, liar. Now, in a
word, who art thou then ?

Mephistapheles. A part of that power, which is ever
willing evil and ever producing good.

Faust. What is meant by this riddle ?

Mephistopheles. I am the spirit which constantly denies,
and that rightly ; for everything that has originated, deserves
to be annihilated. Therefore better were it that nothing
should originate. Thus, all that you call sin, destruction, in
a word. Evil, is my proper element.

Faust. You call yourself a part, and yet stand whole
before me.

Mephistopheles. I tell you the modest truth. Although
man, that microcosm of folly, commonly esteems himself a
whole, I am a part of the part, which in the beginning was
all ; a part of the darkness which brought forth light, — the
proud light, which now contests her ancient rank and space
with mother night. But he succeeds not ; since, strive as
he will, he cleaves, as if bound, to bodies. He streams from
bodies, he gives beauty to bodies, a body stops him in his
course, and so, I hope, he will perish with bodies before
long.

Faust. Now I know thy dignified calling. Thou art not
able to destroy on a great scale, and so art just beginning
on a small one.

Mephistopheles. And, to say truth, little progress has
been made in it. That which is opposed to nothing — the
something, this clumsy world, much as I have tried already,
I have not yet learnt how to come at it, — with waves,
storms, earthquakes, fire. Sea and land remain undisturbed
after all ! And the damned set, the brood of brutes and
men, there is no such thing as getting the better of them

FAUST

neither. How many I have already buried ! And new fresh
blood is constantly circulating ! Things go on so — it is
enough to make one mad ! From air, water, earth — in wet,
dry, hot, cold— germs by thousands evolve themselves. Had
I not reserved fire, I should have nothing apart for myself.

Faust, So thou opposest thy cold devil's fist, clenched
in impotent malice, to the ever stirring, the beneficent
creating power. Try thy hand at something else, wondrous
son of Chaos.

Mephistoplteles. We will think about it in good earnest
— more of that anon ! Might I be permitted this time to
depart ?

Faust. I see not why you ask. I have now made
acquaintance with you ; call on me in future as you feel
inclined. Here is the window, here the door ; there is also
a chimney for you.

Mephistopheles. To confess the truth, a small obstacle
prevents me from walking out — the wizard-foot upon your
threshold.

Faust. The Pentagram embarrasses you ? Tell me then,
thou child of hell, if that repels thee, how cam'st thou in ?
How was such a spirit entrapped ?

Mephistopheles. Mark it well ; it is not well drawn ; one
angle, the outward one, is, as thou see*st, a little open.

Faust. It is a lucky accident. Thou shouldst be my
prisoner then. This is a chance hit.

Mephistopheles. The poodle observed nothing when he
jumped in. The thing looks differently now ; the devil cannot
get out.

Faust But why do you not go through the window ?

Mephistopheles. It is a law binding on devils and
phantoms, that they must go out the same way they stole
in. The first is free to us ; we are slaves as regards the
second.

FAUSTS STUDY

Faust Hell itself has its laws ? I am glad of it ; in
that case a compact, a binding one, may be made with you
gentlemen ?

Mephistopheles. What is promised, that shalt thou enjoy
to the letter ; not the smallest deduction shall be made from
it. But this is not to be discussed so summarily, and we
will speak of it the next time. But I most earnestly beg of
you to let me go this once.

Faust. Wait yet another moment, and tell me something
worth telling.

Mephistopf teles. Let me go now ! I will soon come
back ; you may then question me as you like.

Faust. I have laid no snare for thee ; thou hast run
into the net of thy own free will. Let whoever has got
hold of the devil, keep hold of him ; he will not catch him a
second time in a hurry.

MephistopJieles. If you like, I am ready to stay and
keep you company here, but upon condition that I may
beguile the time properly for you by my arts.

Faust. I shall attend with pleasure ; you may do so,
provided only that the art be an agreeable one.

Mephistoplteles. My friend, you will gain more for your
senses in this one hour, than in the whole year's monotony.
What the delicate spirits sing to you, the lovely images
which they call up, are not an unsubstantial play of
enchantment. Your smell will be charmed, you will then
delight your palate, and then your feelings will be entranced.
No preparation is necessaiy ; we are all assembled — strike up !

SPIRITS.

Vanish ye dark
Arched ceilings above !
More charmingly look in
The friendly blue sky!
Were the dark clouds

FAUST

Melted away!

Little stars sparkle,

Softer suns shine in.

Btherial beauty

Of the children of heaven,

Tremulous bending

Hovers across ;
Longing desire

Follows after.
And the fluttering
Ribbons of drapery
Cover the plains.
Cover the bower,
Where lovers,
Deep in thought.
Give themselves for life.
Bower on bower!
Sprouting tendrils !
Down -weighing grapes
Gush into the vat
Of the hard-squeezing press.
The foaming wines
Gush in brooks,
Rustle through
Pure, precious stones,
Leave the heights
Behind them lying.
Broaden to seas
Around the charm of
Green-growing hills.
And the winged throng
Sips happiness.
Flies to meet the sun.
Flies to meet the bright
Isles, which dancingly
Float on the waves ;
Where we hear
Shouting in choruses.
Where we see
Dancers on meads;
All in th' open air
Disporting alike.
Some are clambering
Over the heights,
Others are swimming

FAUST'S STUDY

Over the seas,
Others are hovering —
All towards the life,
All towards the far away
Loving stars of
Bliss-giving grace.

MephistopJteles. He slumbers ! Well done, my airy,
delicate youngsters ! Ye have fairly sung him to sleep. I
am your debtor for this concert. Thou art not yet the man
to hold fast the devil! Play round him with sweet dreamy
visions ; plunge him in a sea of illusion. But to break the
spell of this threshold I need a rat's tooth. I have not to
conjure long ; one is already rustling hither, and will hear
me in a moment.

The lord of rats and mice, of flies, frogs, bugs and lice,
commands thee to venture forth and gnaw this threshold so
soon as he has smeared it with oil. Thou com'st hopping
forth already! Instantly to the work ! The point which
repelled me is towards the front on the ledge ; one bite
more, and it is done. — Now Faust, dream on, till we meet
again.

Faust {waking). Am I then once again deceived ?
Does the throng of spirits vanish thus? Was it in a lying
dream that the devil appeared to me, and was it a poodle
that escaped ?

FAUST'S STUDY

Faust. — Mephistopheles.

. OES any one ImocU ? Come in ! Who
wants to disturb me again ?
Mcphlsiopheles. It is I.
Faust. Come in.

Mephistoplieles. You must say so three
times.
Come in, then !

So far, so good. We shall go on
very well together, I hope ; for, to chase away your
fancies, 1 am here, like a youth of condition, in a
coat of scarlet laced with gold, a mantle of stiff silk,
a cock's feather in my hat, and a long pointed sword
at my side. And to make no more words about it,
my advice to you is to array yourself in the same
manner immediately, that unrestrained, emancipated,
may try what life is.

Faust. In every dress, I dare say, I shall feel the
torture of the contracted life of this earth. I am too old
to do nothing but play, too young to be without a wish.
What can the world afford me ! — " Thou shalt renounce ! "
" Thou shalt renounce ! " That is the eternal song which
rings in every one's ears ; which our whole life long, every
hour is hoarsely singing to us. In the morning I wake
46

FAUSrS STUDY

only to horror. I would fain weep bitter tears to see the
day, which, in its course, will not accomplish a wish for me,
no, not one ; which, with wayward captiousness, weakens
even the presentiment of every joy, and disturbs the creation
of my busy breast by a thousand ugly realities. Then again,
when night comes round, I must stretch myself in anguish
on my bed ; here, too, no rest is vouchsafed to me ; wild
dreams are sure to harrow me up. The God, that dwells
in my bosom, that can stir my inmost soul, that sways all
my energies — he is powerless as regards things without ;
and thus existence is a load to me, death an object of
earnest prayer, and life detestable.

Mephistopheles. And yet death is never an entirely
welcome guest.

Faust. Oh ! happy the man around whose brows he
wreathes the bloody laurel in the glitter of victory — whom,
after the maddening dance, he finds in a maiden's arms.
Oh that I had sunk away, enrapt, exanimate, before the
great spirit's power!

MephistopJteles. And yet a certain person did not drink
a certain brown juice on a certain night.

Faust. Playing the spy, it seems, is thy amusement.

Mephistopheles. I am not omniscient ; but I know much.

Faust Since a sweet familiar tone drew me from
those thronging horrors, and played on what of childlike
feeling remained in me with the concording note of happier
times, — my curse on everything that entwines the soul with
its jugglery, and spell-binds it in this den of wretchedness
with blinding and flattering influences. Accursed, first, be
the lofty opinion in which the mind wraps itself 1 Accursed,
the blinding of appearances, by which our senses are
subdued! Accursed, what plays the pretender to us in
dreams, — the cheat of glory, of the lasting of a name !
Accursed, what flatters us as property, as wife and child,

FAUST

as slave and plough ! Accursed be Mammon when he stirs
us to bold deeds with treasures, when he smooths our couch
for indolent delight ! My curse on the balsam-juice of the
grape ! My curse on that highest grace of love ! My curse
on Hope, my curse on Faith, and my curse, above all, on
Patience !

CHORUS OF SPIRITS (invisible).

Woe, woe,

Thou hast destroyed it,

The beautiful world,

With violent hand ;

It tumbles, it falls abroad.

A demigod has shattered it to pieces !

We bear away

The wrecks into nothingness.

And wail over

The beauty that is lost.

Mighty

Among the sons of earth,

Proudlier

Build it again,

Build it up in thy bosom !

A new career of life,

With unstained sense

Begin,

And new lays

Shall peal out thereupon.

Mephistopheles. These are the little ones of my train.
Listen, how, with wisdom beyond their years, they counsel
you to pleasure and action. Out into the world, away from
solitariness, where senses and juices stagnate — would they
fain lure you.

Cease to trifle with your grief — which, like a vulture,
feeds upon your vitals. The worst company will make you
feel that you are a man among men. Yet I do not mean
to thrust you amongst the pack. I am none of your great
men ; but if, united with me, you will wend your way
through life, I will readily accommodate myself to be yours

FAUST'S STUDY

upon the spot. I am your companion, and, if it suits you,
your servant, your slave !

Faust. And what am I to do for you in return ?

Mephistopheles. For that you have still a long day of grace.

Faust. No, no ; the devil is an egoist, and is not likely
to do, for God's sake, what is useful to another. Speak
the condition plainly out ; such a servant is a dangerous
inmate.

Mephistopheles. I will bind myself to your service
here^ and never sleep nor slumber at your call. When we
meet on the other side^ you shall do as much for me.

Faust. I care little about the other side: if you first
knock this world to pieces, the other may arise afterwards
if it will. My joys flow from this earth, and this sun
shines upon my sufferings : if I can only separate myself
from them, what will and can, may come to pass. I will
hear no more about it — whether there be hating and loving
in the world to come, and whether there be an Above or
Below in those spheres too.

Mephistopheles. In this mood, you may venture. Bind
yourself; and during these days, you shall be delighted
by my arts; I will give thee what no human being ever
saw yet.

Faust What, poor devil, wilt thou give ? Was a man's
mind, in its high aspiring, ever comprehended by the like
of thee? But if thou hast food which satisfies not; ruddy
gold which, volatile, like quicksilver, melts away in the hand ;
a game, at which one never wins ; a maiden, who, on my
breast, is already ogling my neighbour; the bright godlike
joy of honour, which vanishes like a meteor ! — Show me the
fruit which rots before it is plucked, and trees which every
day grow green anew.

Mephistopheles. Such a task affrights me not. I have
such treasures at my disposal. But, my good friend, the

FAUST

time will come round when we may feast on what is really
good in peace.

Faiist. If ever I stretch myself, calm and composed,
upon a couch, be there at once an end of me. If thou canst
ever flatteringly delude me into being pleased with myself
— if thou canst cheat me with enjoyment, be that day my
last. I off^er the wager.

Mephistopheles. Done !

Faust. And my hand upon it ! If I ever say to the
passing moment — "Stay, thou art so fair!" then mayst thou
cast me into chains ; then will I readily perish ; then may
the death-bell toll ; then art thou free from thy service.
The clock may stand, the index-hand may fall : be time a
thing no more for me !

Mephistopheles. Think well of it ; we shall bear it in
mind.

Faust. You have a perfect right so to do. I have
formed no rash estimate of myself. As I drag on, I am a
slave; what care I, whether thine or another's.

Mephistopheles. This very day, at the doctor's feast, I
shall enter upon my duty as servant. Only one thing — to
guard against accidents, I must trouble you for a line
or two.

Faust. Pedant, dost thou, too, require writing ? Hast
thou never known man nor man's word? Is it not enough
that my word of mouth disposes of my days for all eternity?
Does not the world rave on in all its currents, and am I to
be bound by a promise? Yet this prejudice is implanted in
our hearts : who would willingly free himself from it ? Happy
the man who bears truth pure in his breast ; he will never
have cause to repent any sacrifice ! But a parchment,
written and stamped, is a spectre which all shrink from.
The word dies away in the very pen; in wax and leather is
the mastery. What, evil spirit, wouldst thou of me ? Brass,

FAUSTS STUDY

marble, parchment, paper? Shall I write with style, graver,
pen ? I leave the choice to thee.

Mephistopheles. How can you put yourself in a passion
and overwork your rhetoric in this manner? Any scrap will
do : you will subscribe your name with a drop of blood.

Faust. If this will fully satisfy you, the whim shall be
complied with.

Mephistopheles. Blood is quite a peculiar sort of juice.

Faust. But fear not that I shall break this compact.
What I promise, is precisely what all my energies are striving
for. I have aspired too high : I belong only to thy class.
The Great Spirit has spurned me ; Nature shuts herself
against me. The thread of thought is snapped ; I have
long loathed eveiy sort of knowledge. Let us quench our
glowing passions in the depths of sensuality ; let every wonder
be forthwith prepared beneath the hitherto impervious veil
of sorcery. Let us cast ourselves into the rushing of time,
into the rolling of accident. There pain and pleasure, success
and disappointment, may succeed each other as they will —
man's proper element is restless activity.

Mephistopheles. Nor end nor limit is prescribed to you.
If it is your pleasure to sip the sweets of every thing, to
snatch at all as you fly by, much good may it do you — only
fall to and don't be coy.

Faust. I tell thee again, pleasure is not the question :
I devote myself to the intoxicating whirl ; — to the most
agonizing enjoyment — to enamoured hate — to animating
vexation. My breast, cured of the thirst of knowledge, shall
henceforth bare itself to every pang. I will enjoy in my own
heart's core all that is parcelled out among mankind ; grapple
in spirit with the highest and deepest ; heap the weal and
woe of the whole race upon my breast, and thus dilate my
own individuality to theirs, and perish also, in the end, like
them.

FAUST

Mephistopheles. Oh, believe me, who many thousand
years have chewed the cud on this hard food, that, from the
cradle to the bier, no human being digests the old leaven.
Believe a being like me, this Whole is only made for a god.
He exists in an eternal halo ; us he has brought forth into
darkness ; and only day and night are proper for you.

Faust. But I will.

Mephistopheles. That is well enough to say ! But I am
only troubled about one thing; time is short, art is long. I
should suppose you would suffer yourself to be instructed.
Take a poet to counsel ; make the gentleman set his
imagination at work, and heap all noble qualities on your
honoured head, — the lion's courage, the stag's swiftness, the
fiery blood of the Italian, the enduring firmness of the North.
Make him find out the secret of combining magnanimity
with cunning, and of being in love, after a set plan, with
the burning desires of youth. I myself should like to know
such a gentleman — I would call him Mr. Microcosm.

Faust. What, then, am I, if it be not possible to attain
the crown of humanity, which every sense is striving for ?

Mephistopheles. Thou art in the end — what thou art.
Put on wigs with million of curls — set they foot upon ell-high
socks, — thou abidest ever what thou art.

Faust. I feel it ; in vain have I scraped together and
accumulated all the treasures of the human mind upon myself ;
and when I sit down at the end, still no new power wells up
within ; I am not a hair's breadth higher, not a whit nearer
the Infinite.

Mephistopheles. My good Sir, you see things precisely
as they are ordinarily seen ; we must manage matters better,
before the joys of life pass away from us. What the deuce !

you have surely hands and feet, and head and . And

what I enjoy with spirit, is that then the less my own ? If
I can pay for six horses, are not their powers mine ? I

SCENE WITH THE STUDENT

dash along and am a proper man, as if I had four-and-twenty
l^gs. Quick, then, have done with poring, and straight away
into the world with me. I tell you, a fellow that speculates
is like a brute driven in a circle on a barren heath by an
evil spirit, whilst fair green meadow lies everywhere around.

Faust How shall we set about it ?

Mephistopheles. We will just start and take our chance.
What a place of martyrdom ; what a precious life to lead ! —
wearying one's self and a set of youngsters to death. Leave
that to your neighbour, Mr. Paunch 1 Why will you plague
yourself to thrash straw ? The best that you can know,
you dare not tell the lads. Even now I hear one in the
passage.

Faust. I cannot possibly see him.

MephistopJieles. The poor boy has waited long ; he must
not be sent away disconsolate. Come, give me your cap
and gown : the mask will become me to admiration.

[He changes his dress.

Now trust to my wit. I require but a quarter of an
hour. In the mean time prepare for our pleasant trip.

[Exit Faust.

Mephistopheles in Faust's gown.

Only despise reason and knowledge, the highest strength
of humanity ; only permit thyself to be confirmed in delusion
and sorcery-work by the spirit of lies, — ^and I have thee
unconditionally. Fate has given him a spirit which is ever
pressing onwards uncurbed, — whose overstrained striving
o'erleaps the joys of earth. Him will I drag through the
wild passages of life, through vapid unmeaningness. He
shall sprawl, stand amazed, stick fast, — and meat and drink
shall hang, for his insatiableness, before his craving lips :
he shall pray for refreshment in vain ; and had he not already
given himself up to the devil, he would, notwithstanding,

inevitably be lost. [A Student enters.

53 B

FAUST

Student. I am but just arrived, and come, full of
devotion, to pay my respects to, and make acquaintance
with, a man whom all name to me with reverence.

Mephistopheles. I am flattered by your politeness.
You see a man, like many others. Have you yet made any
inquiry elsewhere ?

Student. Interest yourself for me, I pray you. I come
with every good disposition, a little money, and youthful
spirits ; my mother could hardly be brought to part with me,
but I would fain learn something worth learning in the
world.

Mephistopheles. You are here at the very place for it.

Student. Honestly speaking, I already wish myself
away. These walls, these halls, are by no means to my
taste. The space is exceedingly confined; there is not a
tree, nothing green, to be seen ; and in the lecture rooms,
on the benches, — hearing, sight and thinking fail me.

Mephistopheles. It all depends on habit. Thus, at first,
the child does not take kindly to the mother's breast, but
soon finds a pleasure in nourishing itself. Just so will you
daily experience a greater pleasure at the breasts of
wisdom.

Student. I shall hang delightedly upon her neck: do but
tell me how I am to attain it.

Mephistopheles. Tell me before you go further, what
faculty you fix upon ?

Student. I should wish to be profoundly learned, and
should like to comprehend what is upon earth or in heaven,
science and nature.

Mephistopheles. You are here upon the right scent; but
you must not suffer your attention to be distracted.

Student. I am heart and soul in the cause. A little
relaxation and pastime, to be sure, would not come amiss on
bright summer holidays.

SCENE WITH THE STUDENT

Mephistapheles. Make the most of time, it glides away
so fast. But method teaches you to gain time. For this
reason, my good friend, I advise you to begin with a course
of logic. In this study, the mind is well broken in, — laced
up in Spanish boots, so that it creeps circumspectly along
the path of thought, and runs no risk of flickering, ignis-
fatuus-like, in all directions. Then many a day will be spent
in teaching you that one, two, three — is necessary for that
which formerly you hit off at a blow, as easily as eating and
drinking. It is with the fabric of thought as with a weaver's
master-piece; where one treadle moves a thousand threads:
the shuttle shoots backwards and forwards : the threads flow
unseen : ties, by thousands, are struck off at a blow. Your
philosopher, — he steps in and proves to you, it must have
been so : the first would be so, the second so, and therefore
the third and fourth so ; and if the first and second were
not, the third and fourth would never be. The students of
all countries put a high value on this, but none have become
weavers. He who wishes to know and describe anything
living, seeks first to drive the spirit out of it; he has then
the parts in his hand ; only, unluckily, the spiritual bond is
wanting. Chemistry terms it encheiresis naturce, and mocks
herself without knowing it.

Student. I cannot quite comprehend you.

Mephistapheles. You will soon improve in that respect,
if you learn to reduce and classify all things properly.

Student. I am so confounded by all this, I feel as if a
mill-wheel were turning round in my head.

Mephistapheles. In the next place, before everything
else, you must set to at metaphysics. There see that you
conceive profoundly what is not made for human brains. A
fine word will stand you in stead for what enters and what
does not enter there. And be sure, for this half-year, to
adopt the strictest regularity. You will have five lectures

55 B2

FAUST

every day. Be in as the clock strikes. Be well prepared
beforehand with the paragraphs carefully conned, that you
may see the better that he says nothing but what is in the
book ; yet write away as zealously as if the Holy Ghost were
dictating to you.

Student. You need not tell me that a second time. I
can imagine how useful it is. For what one has in black
and white, one can carry home in comfort.

Mephistopheles. But choose a faculty.

Student. I cannot reconcile myself to jurisprudence.

Mephistopheles. I cannot much blame you. I know the
nature of this science. Laws descend, like an inveterate
hereditary disease ; they trail from generation to generation,
and glide imperceptibly from place to place. Reason becomes
nonsense ; beneficence, calamity. Woe to thee that thou art
a grandson ! Of the law that is born with us — of that,
unfortunately, there is never a question.

Student. You increase my repugnance. Oh, happy he,
whom you instruct. I should almost like to study theology.

Mephistopheles. I do not wish to mislead you. As for
this science, it is so difficult to avoid the wrong way ; there
is so much hidden poison in it, which is hardly to be
distinguished from the medicine. Here, again, it is best to
attend but one master, and swear by his words. Generally
speaking, stick to words ; you will then pass through the
safe gate into the temple of certainty.

Student. But there must be some meaning connected
with the word.

Mephistopheles. Right ; only we must not be too anxious
about that ; for it is precisely where meaning fails that a
word comes in most opportunely. Disputes may be admirably
carried on with words ; a system may be built with words ;
words form a capital subject for belief ; a word admits not
of an iota being taken from it.

SCENE WITH THE STUDENT

Student. Your pardon, I detain you by my many
questions, but I must still trouble you. Would you be so
kind as to add a pregnant word or two on medicine. Three
years is a short time, and the field, God knows, is far too
wide. If one has but a hint, one can feel one's way along
further.

Mephistopheles (aside). I begin to be tired of the prosing
style. I must play the devil true to character again. [Aloud.

The spirit of medicine is easy to be caught ; you study
through the great and little world, and let things go on in
the end — as it pleases God. It is vain that you wander
scientifically about ; no man will learn more than he can ;
he who avails himself of the passing moment — that is the
proper man. You are tolerably well built, nor will you be
wanting in boldness, and if you do but confide in yourself,
other souls will confide in you. In particular, learn how to
treat the women : their eternal ohs 1 and ahs ! so thousand-
fold, are to be cured from a single point, and if you only
assume a moderately demure air, you will have them all
under your thumb. You must have a title, to convince them
that your art is superior to most others, and then you are
admitted from the first to all tHose little privileges which
another spends years in coaxing for. Learn how to feel the
pulse adroitly, and boldly clasp them, with hot wanton looks,
around the tapering hip, to see how tightly it is laced.

Student. There is some sense in that; one sees at any
rate the where and the how.

Mephistopheles. Grey, my dear friend, is all theory, and
green the golden tree of life.

Student. I vow to you, all is as a dream to me. Might
I trouble you another time to hear your wisdom speak upon
the grounds.

Mephistopheles. I am at your service, to the extent of
my poor abilities.

FAUST

Student. I cannot possibly go away without placing my
album in your hands. Do not grudge me this token of your
favour.

Mephistopheles. With all my heart.

[He writes attd gives it hack.

Student {reads). Eritis sicut Deus, scientes bonum et

malum. [He closes the book reverentially, and takes his leave.

Mephistopheles. Only follow the old saying and my
cousin the snake, and some time or other you, with your
likeness to God, will be sorry enough.

Faust {enters). Whither now ?

Mephistopheles. Where you please ; to see the little,
then the great world. With what joy, what profit, will you
revel through the course !

Faust. But with my long beard, I want the easy
manners of society. I shall fail in the attempt. I never
knew how to present myself in the world ; I feel so little in
the presence of others. I shall be in a constant state of
embarrassment.

Mephistopheles. My dear friend, all that will come of
its own accord ; so soon as you feel confidence in yourself,
you know the art of life.

Faust. How, then, are we to start ? Where are your
carriages, horses, and servants.

MephistopJteles. We have but to spread out this mantle ;
that shall bear us through the air. Only you will take no
heavy baggage on this bold trip. A little inflammable air,
which I will get ready, will lift us quickly from this earth;
and if we are light, we shall mount rapidly. I wish you joy
of your new course of life.

AUERBACH'S CELLAR IN LEIPZIG

(Drinking bout of merry Fellows.)

Frosch.

no one drink } no one laugh ? I

will teach you to grin. Why,

you arc like wet straw to-day, yet

at other times you blaze brightly

enough.

Brander. That is your fault ;
you contribute nothing towards it : no
nonsense, no beastliness —
Frosch {throws a glass of wine over Brander's
head). There are both for you !
Brander. You double hog I
Frosch. Why, you wanted me to be so.
Siebel. Out with him who quarrels I With
open heart strike up the song I swill and shout I
Jiolla, holla, ho i
Altmayer. Woe is me ! I am a lost man. Cotton,
here 1 the knave splits my ears.

Siebel. It is only when the vault echoes again, that
one feels the true power of the bass.

Frosch. Right : out with him who takes anything amiss.
A I taralara, da I

FAUST

Altmayer. A ! taralara !

Frosch. Our throats are tuned. [He sings.

" The dear, holy Romish empire, how holds it still
together ?

Brander. A nasty song ! psha, a political song ! an
offensive song ! Thank God every morning of your life, that
you have not the Romish empire to care for. I, at least,
esteem it no slight gain that I am not emperor nor chancellor.
But we cannot do without a head. We will choose a pope.
You know what sort of qualification turns the scale, and
elevates the man.

Frosch {sings). Soar up, Madam Nightingale, give my
sweetheart ten thousand greetings for me.

Siebel. No greeting to the sweetheart; I will not hear
of it.

Frosch. Greeting to the sweetheart, and a kiss too !
Thou shalt not hinder me. [He sings.

Open bolts 1 in stilly night.
Open bolts ! the lover wakes.
Shut bolts ! at morning's dawn.

Siebel. Aye, sing, sing on, and praise and celebrate
her; my turn for laughing will come. She has taken me in;
she will do the same for you. May she have a hobgoblin for
a lover ! He may toy with her on a cross way. An old
he-goat, on his return from the Blocksberg, may wicker
good night to her on the gallop. A hearty fellow of genuine
flesh and blood is far too good for the wench. I will hear
of no greeting, unless it be to smash her windows.

Brander {striking on tite table.) Attend, attend; listen
to me ! You gentlemen must allow me to know something
of life. Love-sick folks sit here, and I must give them
something suitable to their condition by way of good night.
Attend ! a song of the newest cut ! and strike boldly in with
the chorus. [He sings.

CELLAR IN LEIPZIG

" There was a rat in the cellar who lived on nothing but
fat and butter, and had raised himself up a paunch fit for
Doctor Luther himself. The cook had laid poison for him ;
then the world became too hot for him, as if he had love in
his body.

Chorus. " As if he had love in his body."

" He ran round, he ran out, he drank of every puddle ;
he gnawed and scratched the whole house, but his fury
availed nothing ; he gave many a bound of agony ; the poor
beast was soon done for, as if he had love in his body.

Chorus. " As if,'' &c.

" He came running into the kitchen, for sheer pain, in
open daylight, fell on the earth and lay convulsed, and
panted pitiably. Then the poisoner exclaimed, with a laugh —
Hal he is at his last gasp, as if he had love in his body."

Chorus. " As if," &c.

Siebel. How the flats chuckle ! It is a fine thing, to be
sure, to lay poison for the poor rats.

Brander. They stand high in your favour, I dare say.

Altmayer. The bald-pated paunch ! The misadventure
makes him humble and mild. He sees in the swollen rat his
own image drawn to the life.

Faust and Mephistopheles.

Mephistopheles. Before all things else, I must bring you
into merry company, that you may see how lightly life may
be passed. These people make every day a feast. With
little wit and much self-complacency, each turns round in
the narrow circle-dance, like kittens playing with their tails.
So long as they have no headache to complain of, and so
long as they can get credit from their host, they are merry
and free from care.

Brander. They are just off a journey; one may see as

FAUST

much from their strange manner. They have not been here
an hour.

Frosch. Thou art right ; Leipsig is the place for me : it
is a little Paris, and gives its folks a finish.

Siebel. What do you take the strangers to be ?

Frosch. Let me alone; in the drinking of a bumper
I will worm it out of them as easily as draw a child's tooth.
They appear to me to be noble ; they have a proud and
discontented look.

Brander. Mountebanks to a certainty, I wager.

Altmayer. Likely enough.

Frosch. Now mark; I will smoke them.

Mephistopheles to Faust. These people would never
scent the devil, if he had them by the throat.

Faust. Good morrow, gentlemen.

Siebel. Thanks, and good morrow to you.

[AsidCt looking at Mephistopheles askance.

Why does the fellow halt on one foot ?

Mephistopheles. Will you permit us to sit down with
you. We shall have company to cheer us instead of good
liquor, which is not to be had.

Altmayer. You seem a very dainty gentleman.

Frosch. I dare say you are lately from Rippach? Did
you sup with Mr. Hans before you left ?

Mephistopheles. We passed him without stopping
to-day. The last time we spoke to him, he had much to
say of his cousins; he charged us with compliments to
each.

[With an inclination towards Frosch.

Altmayer {aside). Thou hast it there ! he knows a
thing or two.

Siebel. A knowing fellow !
Frosch. Only wait, I shall have him presently.
Mephistopheles. If I am not mistaken, we heard some

CELLAR IN LEIPZIG

practised voices singing in chorus? No doubt singing must
echo admirably from this vaulted roof.

Frosch. I dare say you are a dilettante.

Mephistopheles. Oh, no 1 The power is weak, but the
desire is strong.

Altmayer. Give us a song.

Mephistopheles. As many as you like.

Siebel. Only let it be brand new.

Mephistopheles. We are just returned from Spain, the
fair land of wine and song. [He sings.

" There was once upon a time a king who had a great
flea "—

Frosch. Hark ! A flea ! Did you catch that ! A flea
is a fine sort of chap.

Mephistopheles (sings). ** There was once upon a time
a king ; he had a great flea, and was as fond of it as if it
had been his own son. Then he called his tailor ; the tailor
came. 'There, measure the youngster for clothes, and
measure him for breeches.' "

Brander. Only don't forget to impress it on the tailor
to measure with the greatest nicety, and, as he loves his
head, to make the breeches sit smoothly.

Mephistopheles (sings). " He was now attired in velvet
and silk, had ribbons on his coat, had a cross besides, and
was forthwith made minister, and had a great star. Then
his brothers and sisters also became great folks. And the
ladies and gentlemen at court were dreadfully tormented ;
from the queen to the waiting-woman they were pricked and
bitten, yet dared not crack nor scratch them away. But
we crack and stifle fast enough when one pricks."

Chorus. " But we crack/' &c.

Frosch. Bravo 1 bravo ! That was capital.

Siebel. So perish every flea.

Brander. Point your fingers, and nick them cleverly.

FAUST

Altmayer. Liberty for ever ! Wine for ever !

Mephistopheles. I would willingly drink a glass in honour
of liberty, were your wine a thought better.

Siebel. You had better not let us hear that again !

Mephistopheles. I am afraid the landlord would feel
hurt, or I would treat these worthy gentlemen out of our
own stock.

Siebel. O, bring it in ; I take the blame upon myself.

Frosch. Give us a good glass, and we shall not be
sparing of our praise ; only don't let your samples be too
small ; for if I am to give an opinion, I require a regular
mouthful.

Altmayer (aside). They are from the Rhine, I guess.

Mephistopheles. Bring a gimlet.

Brander. What for ? You surely have not the casks at
the door ?

Altmayer. Behind there, is a tool-chest of the landlord's.

Mephistopheles (taking the gimlet, to Frosch). Now say,
what wine would you wish to taste ?

Frosch. What do you mean? Have you so many sorts?

Mephistopheles. I give every man his choice.

Altmayer (to Frosch). Ah ! You begin to lick your lips
already.

Frosch. Well ! if I am to choose, I will take Rhine
wine. Our father-land affords the very best of gifts.

Mephistopheles (boring a hole in the edge of the table where
Frosch is sitting). Get a little wax to make stoppers
immediately.

Altmayer. Ah ! these are juggler's tricks.

Mephistopheles (to Brander). And you ?

Brander. I choose champagne, and let it be right
sparkling.

[Mephistopheles bores ; one of the others has in the mean
time prepared the wax-stoppers and stopped the holes.

CELLAR IN LEIPZIG

One cannot always avoid what is foreign ; what is good often
lies so far off. A true German cannot abide Frenchmen, but
willingly drinks their wines.

Siebel (as Mbphistophblbs approaches him). I must own
I do not like acid wine ; give me a glass of genuine sweet.

Mephistopheles {bores). You shall have Tokay in a
twinkling.

Altmayer. No, gentlemen ; look me in the face. I see
plainly you are only making fun of us.

Mephistopheles. Ha ! ha ! that would be taking too great
a liberty with such distinguished guests. Quick ! only speak
out at once. What wine can I have the pleasure of serving
you with ?

Altmayer. With any ! only don't lose time in asking.

[After all the holes are bored and stopped.

Mephistopheles {with strange gestures).

The vine bears grapes.

The he-goat bears horns.

Wine is juicy, vines are wood ;

The wooden table can also give wine.

A deep glance into nature !

Behold a miracle, only have faith ;

Now draw the stoppers and be merry.
All {as they draw the stoppers y and the wine he cJiose
runs into each man's glass). Oh ! beautiful spring, that flows
for us 1

Mephistopheles. Only take care not to spill any of it.

[They drink repeatedly.

All {sing).

We are as happy as cannibals,

As five hundred swine.
Mephistopheles. These people are now in their glory;
mark how merry they are.

Faust. I should like to be off now.

FAUST

Mephistopheles. But first attend ; their brutishness will
display itself right gloriously.

Siebel (drinks carelessly; the wine is spilt upon the
ground J and turns to flame). Help ! fire ! help 1 Hell is
burning.

Mephistopheles {conjuring the flame). Be quiet, friendly
element. {To Siebel.) This time it was only a drop of the
fire of purgatory.

Siebel. What may that be ? Hold ! you shall pay dearly
for it. It seems that you do not know us.

Frosch. He had better not try that a second time.

Altmayer. I think we had better send him packing
quietly.

Siebel. What, Sir, dare you play off your hocuspocus
here ?

Mephistopheles. Silence, old wine-butt.

Siebel. Broomstick ! will you be rude to us too.

Brander. But hold ! or blows shall rain.

Altmayer {draws a stopper from the table; fire flies out
against him). I burn ! I burn !

Siebel. Sorcery ; thrust home ! the knave is fair game.

[They draw their knives and fall upon Mephistopheles.

Mephistopheles {with solemn gestures).

False form and word.
Change sense and place.
Be here, be there !

[They stand amazed and gaze on each other,

Altmayer. Where am I ? What a beautiful country 1
Frosch. Vineyards ! Can I believe my eyes ?
Siebel. And grapes close at hand I

Brander. Here, under these green leaves, see, what a
stem 1 see what a bunch !

[He siezes Siebel by the nose. The others do the same
one with the other ^ and brandish their knives.

CELLAR IN LEIPZIG

MephistopJieles {as before). Error, loose the bandage
from their eyes 1 And do ye remember the devil's mode of

jesting ! [He disappears with Faust. The fellows start hack

from one another,

Siebel. What's the matter?

Altmayer. How ?

Frosch. Was that thy nose ?

Brander {to Siebel). And I have thine in my hand 1

Altmayer. It was a shock which thrilled through every
limb I Give me a chair, I am sinking.

Frosch. No, do but tell me ; what has happened ?

Siebel. Where is the fellow ? If I meet with him, it
shall be as much as his life is worth.

Altmayer. I myself saw him at the cellar door, riding
out upon a cask. My feet feel as heavy as lead.

[Turning towards the table.

My I I wonder whether the wine is running still ?

Siebel. It was all a cheat, a lie, and a make-believe.

Frosch. Yet it seemed to me as if I was drinking wine.

Brander. But how was it with the grapes ?

Altmayer. Let any one tell me after that, that one is
not to believe in wonders !

WITCH'S KITCHEN

A large cauldron is hanging over the fire on a low hearth. Different
figures are seen in the fumes which rise from it. A Female Monkey
is sitting by the cauldron and skimming it, and taking care that it
does not run over. The Male Monkey is seated near with the young
ones, and wanning himself. The walls and ceiling are hung with
the strangest articles of Witch furniture.

Faust.

LOATHE this mad concern of

witchcraft. Do you promise me

that I shall recover in this chaos

of insanity. Do I need an old

hag's advice ? And will this

mess of cookery really take

thirty years from my body ? Woe is me,

if you know of nothing better 1 Hope

is already gone. Has nature and has a

noble spirit discovered no sort of balsam ?

Mephistopheles. My friend, now again you speak
wisely ! There is also a natural mode of renewing
youth. But it is in another book, and is a strange
chapter.

Faust. Let me know it.
Mephistopheles. Well ! to have a mean without money,
physician or sorcery: betake thyself straightway to the field,
begin to hack and dig, confine thyself and thy sense within
68

WITCH'S KITCHEN

a thoroughly contracted circle ; support thyself on simple
food ; live with beasts as a beast, and think it no robbery
to manure the land you crop. That is the best way, believe
me, to keep you young to eighty.

Faust. I am not used to it. I cannot bring myself to take
the spade in hand. The confined life does not suit me at all.

Mephistopheles. Then you must have recourse to the
witch after all.

Faust. But why the old woman in particular? Cannot
you brew the drink yourself ?

Mephistopheles. That were a pretty pastime ! I would
rather build a thousand bridges in the time. Not art and
science only, but patience is required for the job. A quiet
spirit is busy at it for years; time only makes this fine
fermented liquor strong. And the ingredients are exceedingly
curious. The devil, it is true, has taught it her, but the devil
cannot make it. {Perceiving the Monkeys). See what a
pretty breed ! That is the lass — that the lad. {To the
Monkeys). It seems your mistress is not at home ?

The Monkeys.
At the feast.
Out of the house.
Out and away by the chimney-stone.

Mephistopheles. How long does she usually rake ?

The Monkeys. Whilst we are warming our paws.

Mephistopheles (to Faust). What think you of the pretty
creatures ?

Faust. The most disgusting I ever saw.

Mephistopheles. Nay, a discourse like the present is
precisely what I am fondest of engaging in. {To the
Monkeys). Tell me, accursed whelps, what are ye stirring
up vnth the porridge ?

Monkeys. We are cooking coarse beggars' broth.

Mephistopheles. You will have plenty of customers.

69 F

FAUST
The He Monkey (approaches and faxons on Mbphis-

TOPHBLBS).

quick throw the dice,
And make me rich —
And let me win I

My fate is a sorry one,
And had I money

1 should not want for consideration.
Mephistopheles. How happy the monkey would think

himself, if he could only put into the lottery.

[The Young Monkeys have^ in the mean time, been t>laying
with a large glohc^ and roll it forwards.

The He Monkey.

That is the world ;

It rises and falls,

And rolls unceasingly.

It rings like glass :

How soon breaks that ?

It is hollow within ;

It glitters much here,

And still more here —

I am alive !

My dear son.

Keep thee aloof;

Thou must die !

It is of clay,

This makes potsherds.
Mephistopheles. What is the sieve for?
The He Monkey {takes it doxvn). Wert thou a thief, I
should know thee at once.

[He runs to the female and makes her look through.

Look through the sieve !
Dost thou recognise the thief?
And darest not name him ?

Faust and the Magic Mirror,

•loiiW; Vi^DVl ^c\t bno Uuui

WITCH'S KITCHEN

Mephistopheles (approaching the fire). And this pot ?
The Monkeys.

The half-witted sot I

He knows not the pot I

He knows not the kettle !
Mephistopheles. Uncivil brute !
The He Monkey. Take the brush here, and sit down on

the settle. [He makes Mbphistophblbs sit down.

Faust {who all this time has been standing before a
looking-glass^ now approaching and now standing off from it).
What do I see ? . What a heavenly image shows itself in
this magic mirror ! O Love ! lend me the swiftest of thy
wings, and bear me to her region 1 Ah 1 when I do not
remain upon this spot, when I venture to go near, I can
only see her as in a mist. The loveliest image of a woman !
Is it possible, is woman so lovely ? Must I see in these
recumbent limbs the innermost essence of all Heavens ? Is
there anything like it upon earth.

Mephistopheles. When a God first works hard for six
days, and himself says bravo at the end, it is but natural
that something clever should come of it. For this time look
your fill. I know where to find out such a love for you,
and happy he whose fortune it is to bear her home as a
bridegroom.

[Faust continues looking into the mirror. Mbphistophblbs,
stretching himself on the settle and playing with the
brush, continues speaking.

Here I sit, like the king upon his throne ; here is my
sceptre — I only want the crown.

The Monkeys (who have hitherto been playing all sorts
of strange antics^ bring Mephistopheles a crown^ xvith loud
acclamations). Oh, be so good as to glue the crown vdth
sweat and blood.

71 F 2

FAUST

[They handle the crown awkwardly, and break it ifito two
pieces, with which they jump about.

Now it is done.
We speak and see ;
We hear and rhyme —
Faust {before the mirror). Woe is me ! I am becoming
almost mad I

Mephistopheles {pointing to the Monkeys). My own head
begins to totter now.
The Monkeys.

— And if we are lucky —
And if things fit,
Then there are thoughts.
Faust {as before). My breast is beginning to burn. Do
but let us begone immediately.

Mephistopheles {in the same position). Well, no one can
deny, at any rate, that they are sincere poets.

[The cauldron, which the She Monkey has neglected, begins
to boil over ; a great flame arises, which streams up the
chimney. The Witch comes shooting down through
the flame with horrible cries.

The Witch.

Ough, ough, ough, ough !

Damned beast I Accursed sow !

Neglecting the cauldron, scorching your dame —

Cursed beast !

[Espying Paust and Mbphistophblbs.

What now?

Who are ye ?

What would ye here ?

Who hath come slinking in ?

The plague of fire

Into your bones !

WITCH'S KITCHEN

[She dips the skimming ladle into the cauldron^ attd
sprinkles flames at Faust, Mbphistophbles, and
the MoNKBYS. The Monkeys whimper.

Mephistopheles {who inverts the brush which lie Jwlds
in his hattdj and strikes amongst the glasses and pots).

To pieces !

There lies the porridge !

There lies the glass !
It is only carrying on the jest — beating time, thou carrion,

to thy melody. [As the Witch steps hack in rage and amazement.

Dost thou know me, thou atomy, thou scarecrow ? Dost
thou know thy lord and master ? What is there to hinder
me from striking in good earnest, from dashing thee and thy
monkey-spirits to pieces ? Hast thou no more any respect
for the red doublet ? Canst thou not distinguish the cock's
feather ? Have I concealed this face ? Must I then name
myself ?

TJie Witch. O master, pardon this rough reception.
But I see no cloven foot. Where then are your two ravens ?

Mephistopiteles. This once, the apology may sei've. For,
to be sure, it is some while since we saw each other. The
march of intellect too, which licks all the world into shape,
has even reached the devil. The northern phantom is now no
more to be seen. Where do you see horns, tail and claws ?
And as for the foot, which I cannot do without, it would
prejudice me in society ; therefore, like many a gallant, I
have worn false calves these many years.

The Witch (dancing). I am almost beside myself, to see
the gallant Satan here again.

Mephistopheles. The name, woman, I beg to be spared.

The Witch. Wherefore ? What has it done to you ?

Mephistopheles. It has been long written in story books;
but men arc not the better for that ; they are rid of the

FAUST

wicked one, the wicked have remained. You may call me
Baron, that will do very well. I am a cavalier, like other
cavaliers. You doubt not of my gentle blood ; see here,

this is the coat of arms I bear ! [He tnakes an unseemly gesture.

The Witch {laughs immoderately). Ha, ha ! That is in
your way. You are the same mad wag as ever.

Mephistopheles (to Faust). My friend, attend to this.
This is the way to deal with witches.

The Witch. Now, sirs, say what you are for.

Mephistopheles. A good glass of the juice you wot of.
I must beg you to let it be of the oldest. Years double
its power.

The Witch. Most willingly. Here is a bottle out of
which I sometimes sip a little myself ; which, besides,
no longer stinks the least. I will give you a glass with
pleasure. (Aside). But if this man drinks it unprepared,
you well know he cannot live an hour.

Mephistopheles. He is a worthy friend of mine, on
whom it will have a good effect. I grudge him not the best
of thy kitchen. Draw thy circle, spell thy spells, and give
him a cup full.

[The Witch, with strange gestures, draws a circle and places rare
things in it; in the mean time, the glasses begin to ring, and the
cauldron to sound, and make tnusic. Lastly, she brings a great
book, and places the Monkeys in the circle, who are made to serve
her for a reading desk and hold the torches. She signs to Faust

to approach,

Faust {to Mephistopheles). But tell me what is to
come of all this ? This absurd apparatus, these frantic
gestures, this most disgusting jugglery — I know them of
old and thoroughly abominate them.

Mephistopheles. Pooh ! that is only fit to laugh at. Don't
be so fastidious. As mediciner she is obliged to play off some
hocus-pocus, that the dose may operate well on you.

[He makes Faust enter the circle.
74

•

WITCH'S KITCHEN

The Witch {with a strong emphasis^ begins to declaim
from the book).

You must understand,

Of one make ten,

And let two go,

And three make even ;

Then art thou rich.

Lose the four.

Out of five and six.

So says the Witch,

Make seven and eight,

Then it is done.

And nine is one,

And ten is none.

That is the witches one-times-one.
Faust. It seems to me that the hag is raving.
Mephistopiteles. There is a good deal more of it yet —
I know it well ; the whole book is to the same tune. I have
wasted many an hour upon it, for a downright contradiction
remains equally mysterious to wise folks and fools. My
friend, the art is old and new. It has ever been the fashion
to spread error instead of truth by three and one, and one
and three. It is taught and prattled uninterruptedly. Who
will concern themselves about dolts ? Men are wont to
believe, when they hear only words, that there must be
something in it.

The Witch continues.

The high power

Of knowledge,

Hidden from the whole world !

And he who thinks not.

On him is it bestowed ;

He has it without trouble.
Faust. What sort of nonsense is she reciting to us ?

FAUST

My head is splitting ! I seem to hear a hundred thousand
idiots declaiming in full chorus.

Mephistopheles. Enough, enough, excellent Sibyl ! Hand
us thy drink, and fill the cup to the brim without more ado;
for this draught will do my friend no harm. He is a man
of many grades, who has taken many a good gulp already.

[The Witch with many ceremonies pours the liquor into a cup; as

Faust lifts it to his mouth a light flame arises,

Down with it at once. Do not stand hesitating. It will
soon warm your heart. Are you hail-fellow well-met with
the devil, and afraid of fire ?

[The Witch dissolves the circle — Faust steps out.

Now forth at once ! You must not rest.

The Witch. Much good may the draught do you.

Mephistopheles (to the Witch). And if I can do any
thing to pleasure you, you need only mention it to me on
Walpurgis* night.

Tfie Witch, Here is a song ! if you sing it occasionally,
it will have a particular effect on you.

Mephistopfieles {to Faust). Come quick, and be guided ;
it is absolutely necessary for you to perspire, to make the
spirit work through blood and bone. I will afterwards teach
you to value the nobility of idleness, and you will feel ere
long, with heartfelt delight, how Cupid bestirs himself and
bounds hither and thither.

Faust. Let me only look another moment in the glass.
That female form was too, too lovely.

Mephistopheles. Nay, nay ; you shall soon see the model
of all womankind in flesh and blood. (Aside.) With this
draught in your body, you will soon see an Helen in every
woman.

THE STREET

Faust (Margaret passing by).

PRETTY LADY, may I take the liberty
of offering you my arm and escort.

Margaret. I am neither lady, nor
pretty, and can go home by myself.

[She disengages herself, and exit.
Faust. By heaven, this girl is
lovely! ! have never seen the like of
her. She is so well-behaved and virtuous, and some-
thing snappish withal. The redness of her lip, the light
of her cheek — I shall never forget them all the days of
my life. The manner in which she cast down her eyes
is deeply stamped upon my heart; and how tart she was —
it was absolutely ravishing ! [Hhphistopheleb enters,

Fatist. Hark, you must get me the girl.
Mephistopheles. Which ?
Faust. She passed but now.

Mephistopheles. What, she ? She came from her

confessor, who absolved her from all her sins. I stole up

close to the chair. It is an innocent little thing, that went for

next to nothing to the confessional. Over her I have no power.

Faust. Yet she is past fourteen.

Mephistopheles. You positively speak like Jack Rake,
who covets every sweet flower for himself, and fancies that
there is neither honour nor favour which is not to be had
for the plucking. But this will not always do.
77

FAUST

Faust. My good Mr. Sermoniser, don't plague me with
your morality. And, in a word, I tell you this : if the sweet
young creature does not lie this very night in my arms, at
midnight our compact is at an end.

Mephistopheles. Consider what is possible. I need a
fortnight, at least, only to find an opportunity.

Faust. Had I but seven hours clear, I should not want
the devil's assistance to seduce such a child.

Mephistopheles. You talk now almost like a Frenchman :
but don't fret about it, I beg. What boots it to go straight
to enjoyment ? The delight is not so great by far, as when
you have kneaded and moulded the doll on all sides with all
sorts of nonsense, as many a French story teaches.

Faust. But I have appetite without all that.

Mephistoplieles. Now, seriously and without offence, I
tell you once for all, that the lovely girl is not to be had in
such a hurry ; nothing here is to be taken by storm ; we
must have recourse to stratagem.

Faust. Get me something belonging to the angel.
Carry me to her place of repose ; get me a kerchief from
her bosom, a garter of my love.

Mephistopheles. That you may see my anxiety to
minister to your passion, — we will not lose a moment; this
very day I will conduct you to her chamber.

Faust. And shall I see her ? have her ? —

Mephistopheles. No. She will be at a neighbour's. In
the meantime, you, all alone, and in her atmosphere, may
feast to satiety on future joys.

Faust. Can we go now ?

Mephistoplieles. It is too early.

Faust. Get me a present for her. [Exit,

Mephistopheles. Making presents directly ! That's capital !
That's the way to succeed ! I know many a fine place and
many a long-buried treasure. I must look them over a bit.

78 [Exit.

EVENING

A neat little Room.
Margaret {braiding and binding up her hair).

WOULD give something to know who
that gentleman was to-day ! He had
a gallant bearing, and is of a noble
family I am sure. I could read that
on his brow ; besides, he would not
else have been so impudent. [Exit.

Mephistopheles — Faust.
Mephistoplieles. Come in — as softly as possible —
only come in !

Faust {after a pause). Leave me alone, I beg of
you.

Mephistopheles {looking round). It is not every maiden

that is so neat. [Exit.

Faust {looking round). Welcome, sweet twilight, that

pervades this sanctuary I Possess my heart, delicious pangs

of love, you who live languishing on the dew of hope I What

a feeling of peace, order, and contentment breathes round I

What abundance in this poverty 1 What bliss in this cell 1

[He throws himself upon the leathern easy chair by the

side of the bed.

FAUST

Oh ! receive me, thou, who hast welcomed, with open arms,
in joy and sorrow, the generations that are past. Ah, how
often has a swarm of children clustered about this patriarchal
throne. Here, perhaps, in gratitude for her Christmas-box,
with the warm round cheek of childhood — has my beloved
piously kissed the withered hand of her grandsire. Maiden,
I feel thy spirit of abundance and order breathe round me —
that spirit which daily instructs thee like a mother — which
bids thee spread the cloth neatly upon the table and curl
the sand at thy feet. Dear hand ! so godlike ! you make
the hut a heaven ; and here — {He lifts up a bed-curtain) —
what blissful tremor seizes me ! Here could I linger for
whole hours ! Nature ! here, in light dreams, you matured
the born angel. Here lay the child ! its gentle bosom filled
with warm life ; and here, with weavings of hallowed purity,
the divine image developed itself.

And thou, what has brought thee hither ? How deeply
moved I feel ! What would'st thou here ? Why grows thy
heart so heavy ? Poor Faust, I no longer know thee.

Am I in an enchanted atmosphere ? I panted so
for instant enjoyment, and feel myself dissolving into a
dream of love. Are we the sport of every pressure of the
air?

And if she entered this very moment, how would'st thou
atone for thy guilt ! The big boaster, alas, how small !
would lie, dissolved away, at her feet.

Mephistopheles. Quick ! I see her coming below.

Faust. Away, away ! I return no more.

Mephistoplieles. Here is a casket tolerably heavy. I
took it from somewhere else. Only place it instantly in the
press here. I swear to you, she will be fairly beside herself.
I put baubles in it to gain another ; but child is child, and
play is play.

Faust. I know not — shall I ?

Margaret adorns herself With the Jewels.

•tls^sV* ^A) A)\US XWinsA iniobD Isr^D^toVl

MARGARET'S ROOM

Mephistopheles. Is that a thing to ask about ? Perchance
you mean to keep the treasure for yourself ? In that case
I advise you to spare the precious hours for your lusts, and
further trouble to me. I hope you are not avaricious. I
scratch my head, rub my hands —

[He places the casket in the press and closes the lock.

But away, quick ! — to bend the sweet young creature to
your heart's desire ; and now you look as if you were going
to the lecture-room — as if Physic and Metaphysic were
standing grey and bodily before you there. But away !

[Exeunt.

Margaret {with a lamp). It feels so close, so sultry
here. [She opens the window.'] And yet it is not so very
warm without. I begin to feel I know not how. I wish
my mother would come home. I tremble all over ; but I
am a silly, timid woman.

[She begins to sing as she undresses herself.

SONG.

There was a king in Thule,
Faithful even to the grave.
To whom his dying mistress
Gave a golden goblet.

He prized nothing above it;
He emptied it at every feast;
His eyes overflowed as often
As he drank out of it.

And when he came to die.
He reckoned up the cities in his kingdom ;
He grudged none of them to his heir,
But not so with the goblet.

FAUST

He sat at the royal banquet,
With his knights around him,
In his proud ancestral hall, there
In his castle on the sea.

There stood the old toper.
Took a parting draught of life's glow.
And threw the hallowed goblet
Down into the waves.

He saw it splash, fill and sink
Deep into the sea;
His eyes fell, he never

Drank a drop more.

[She opens the press to put away her clothes, and perceives the casket.

How came this beautiful casket here ? I am sure I
locked the press. It is very strange ! What is in it, I
wonder ? Perhaps some one brought it as a pledge, and
my mother lent upon it. A little key hangs by the ribbon; I
have a good mind to open it. What is this ? Good heavens I
look ! I have never seen anything like it in all my born
days I A set of trinkets ! a countess might wear such on
the highest festival. How would the chain become me? To
whom can such finery belong?

[She puts them on, and walks be/ore the looking-glass.

If the earrings were but mine ! one cuts quite a difierent
figure in them. What avails your beauty, young maiden ?
That may be all pretty and good, but they let it all be. You
are praised, half in pity ; but after gold presses — on gold
hangs — everything. — Alas, for us poor ones!

PUBLIC WALK

Faust walking up and down thoughtfully. To him
Mephistopheles.

despised love ! By the elements of
hell ! Would that 1 knew something
worse to curse by 1

Faust. What is the matter ? What
is it that pinches you so sharply ? I
never saw such a face in my life.
Mephistopiieles. I could give myself
to the devil directly, were I no devil myself.

Faust. Is your brain disordered? It becomes
you truly, to rave like a madman.

Mepkistop/teles. Only think 1 A priest has
carried off the jewels provided for Margaret. The
mother gets sight of the thing, and begins at once to
have a secret horror of it. Truly the woman hath
a fine nose, is ever snuffling in her prayer-book, and
smells in every piece of furniture whether the thing be holy
or profane ; and she plainly smells out in the jewels, that
there was not much blessing in them. " My child," said she,
" unrighteous wealth ensnares the soul, consumes the blood.
We will consecrate it to the Mother of God ; she will gladden
us with heavenly manna." Margaret made a wry face; it
is after all, thought she, a gift horse ; and truly, he cannot
83

FAUST

be godless, who brought it here so handsomely. The mother
sent for a priest. Scarcely had he heard the jest, but he
seemed well pleased with the sight. He spoke : " This shows
a good disposition ; who conquers himself, — he is the gainer.
The church has a good stomach ; she has eaten up whole
countries, and has never yet over-eaten herself. The church
alone, my good woman, can digest unrighteous wealth."

Faust. That is a general custom ; a Jew and a King
can do it too.

Mephistopheles. So saying he swept off clasp, chain
and ring, as if they were so many mushrooms ; thanked
them neither more nor less than if it had been a basket of
nuts; promised them all heavenly reward — and very much
edified they were.

Faust. And Margaret —

Mephistopheles. Is now sitting full of restlessness ; not
knowing what to do with herself; thinks day and night on
the trinkets, and still more on him who brought them
to her.

Faust. My love's grief distresses me. Get her another
set immediately. The first were no great things after all.

Mephistopheles. Oh 1 to be sure, all is child's play to
the gentleman I

Faust. Do it, and order it as I wish. Stick close to
her neighbour. Don't be a milk-and-water devil; and fetch
a fresh set of jewels.

Mephistopheles. With all my heart, honoured Sir.

[Faust exit.

A love-sick fool like this puffs away into the air, sun^
moon and stars, by way of pastime for his mistress.

THE NEIGHBOUR'S HOUSE

Martha (alone).

ar.

forgive my dear husband ; he has
not acted well towards me. He goes
straight away into the world, and
leaves me widowed and lonely. Yet
truly I never did anything to vex him ;
God knows 1 loved him to ray heart.
[Site weeps.) Perhaps he is actually dead.
Oh, torture 1 Had I but a certificate of his death !

Margarbt enters.

Margaret. Martha.

Martha. What is the matter, Margaret ?
Margaret. My knees almost sink under me I I
have found just such another casket in my press,
of ebony, and things quite grand, far costlier than the
first.

Martha. You must say nothing about it to your mother.
She would carry it to the confessional again.

Margaret. Now, only see I do but look at thera !
Martha (dresses her up in them). Oh 1 you happy
creature.

Margaret. Unfortunately, I must not be seen in them
in the street, nor in the church.

85 o

FAUST

Martha. Do but come over frequently to me, and put
on the trinkets here in private. Walk a little hour up and
down before the looking-glass ; we shall have our enjoyment
in that. And then an occasion offers, a holiday happens,
where, little by little, one lets folks see them; first a
chain, then the pearl earrings. Your mother, perhaps,
will not observe it, or one may make some pretence
to her.

Margaret. But who could have brought the two
caskets ? There is something not right about it.

[Some one knocks.

Margaret. Good God ! can that be my mother ?

Martha {looking through the blinds). It is a stranger —
come in !

M ephistopheles {enters). I have made free to come in
at once ; I have to beg pardon of the ladies.

[He steps back respectfully on seeing Margaret.

I came to enquire after Mrs. Martha Schwerdtlein.

Martha. I am she ; what is your pleasure, Sir ?

M ephistopheles {aside to her). I know you now — that is
enough. You have a visitor of distinction there. Excuse
the liberty I have taken. I will call again in the afternoon.

Martha {aloud). Only think, child — of all things in the
world ! this gentleman takes you for a lady.

Margaret. I am a poor young creature. Oh ! Heavens,
the gentleman is too obliging. The jewels and ornaments
are none of mine.

M ephistopheles. Ah ! it is not the jewels alone. She
has a mien, a look, so striking. How glad I am that I may
stay.

Martha. What do you bring then } I am very curious —

M ephistopheles. I wish I had better news. I hope you
will not make me suffer for it. Your husband is dead, and
sends you his compliments.

I-

THE NEIGHBOUR'S HOUSE

Martha. Is dead 1 the good soul I Oh, woe is me !
My husband is dead ! Ah, I shall die I

Margaret. Dear, good Martha, don't despair.

Mephistopheles. Listen to the melancholy tale.

Margaret. For this reason I should wish never to be
in love for all the days of my life. The loss would grieve
me to death.

MephistopJieles. Joy must have sorrow — sorrow, joy.

Martha. Relate to me the close of his life.

Mephistopheles. He lies buried in Padua at St. Antony's,
in a well-consecrated spot for an eternally cool bed of rest.

Martha. Have you nothing else for me ?

Mephistopheles. Yes, a request, big and heavy ! be sure
to have three hundred masses sung for him. For the rest,
my pockets are empty.

Martha. What ! not a coin by way of token ? Not a
trinket ^ what every journeyman mechanic husbands at the
bottom of his pouch, saved as a keepsake, and rather
starves, rather begs —

Mephistopheles. Madam, I am very sorry. But he
really has not squandered away his money. He also bitterly
repented of his sins; aye, and bewailed his ill-luck still more.

Margaret. Ah ! that mortals should be so unlucky I
Assuredly I will sing many a requiem for him.

Mephistopheles. You deserve to be married directly.
You are a sweet girl.

Margaret. Oh, no, there is time enough for that.

Mephistopheles. If not a husband, then a gallant in the
meantime. It were one of the best gifts of heaven to have
so sweet a thing in one's arms.

Margaret. That is not the custom in this country.

Mephistopheles. Custom or not, such things do come to
pass though.

Martha. But relate to me —

87 3

FAUST

Mephi8tapheles. I stood by his death-bed. It was
somewhat better than dung, — of half-rotten straw ; but he
died like a Christian, and found that he had still much more
upon his score. '^ How thoroughly/' he cried, " must I detest
myself — to run away from my business and my wife in such
a manner. Oh ! the recollection is death to me. If she
could but forgive me in this life ! " —

Martha {weeping). The good man ! I have long since
forgiven him.

Mephistopheles. '' But, God knows, she was more in fault
than I."

Martha. He lied then ! What, tell lies on the brink of
the gravel

Mephistopheles. He certainly fabled with his last breath,
if I am but half a connoisseur. '' I," said he, '^ had no
occasion to gape for pastime — first to get children, and then
bread for them — and bread in the widest sense, — and could
not even eat my share in peace/'

Martha. Did he thus forget all my truth, all my love —
my drudgery by day and night?

Mephistopheles. Not so; he affectionately reflected on
it. He said : " When I left Malta, I prayed fervently for
my wife and children ; and heaven was so far favourable,
that our ship took a Turkish vessel, which carried a treasure
of the great sultan. Bravery had its reward, and, as was
no more than right, I got my fair share of it."

Martha. How ! Where ! Can he have buried it ?

Mephistopheles. Who knows where it is now scattered
to the four winds of heaven ? A fair damsel took an
interest in him as he was strolling about, a stranger,
in Naples. She showed great fondness and fidelity towards
him ; so much so, that he felt it even unto his blessed
end.

MartJui. The villain I the robber of his children I And

THE NEIGHBOUR'S HOUSE

all the wretchedness, all the poverty, could not check his
scandalous life.

Mephistopheles. But consider, he has paid for it with
his life. Now, were I in your place, I would mourn him for
one chaste year, and have an eye towards a new sweetheart
in the meantime.

Martha. Oh God I but I shall not easily in this world
find another like my first. There could hardly be a kinder-
hearted fool : he only loved being away from home too
much, and stranger women, and stranger wine, and the
cursed dicing.

Mephistopheles. Well, well, things might have gone on
very well, if he, on his part, only had the same indulgence
for you. I protest, upon this condition, I would change
rings with you myself 1

Martha. Oh, the gentleman is pleased to jest.

Mephistopheles {aside). Now it is full time to be off. I
dare say she would take the devil himself at his word. —
{To Margaret). How goes it with your heart ?

Margaret. What do you mean. Sir?

Mephistopheles {aside). Good, innocent child. — {Aloud). —
Farewell, ladies !

Margaret. Farewell !

Martha. Oh, but tell me quickly ! I should like to
have a certificate where, how, and when my love died and
was buried. I was always a friend to regularity, and should
like to read his death in the paper.

Mephistopheles. Aye, my good madam, the truth is
manifested by the testimony of two witnesses all the
world over ; and I have a gallant companion, whom I
will bring before the judge for you. I will fetch him
here.

Martha. Oh, pray do !

Mephistopheles. And the young lady will be here too ? —

FAUST

a fine lad ! has travelled much, and shows all possible
politeness to the ladies.

Margaret. I should be covered with confusion in the
presence of the gentleman.

Mephistapheles. In the presence of no king on earth.

MartJia. Behind the house, there, in my garden, we
shall expect you both this evening.

THE STREET

Faust — Mephistopheles.

Faust.

goes it ? Is it in train ? Will it
soon do ?

Mephistopheles. Bravo 1 Do I Bnd
you all on fire ? Margaret will very
shortly be yours. This evening you will
see her at her neighbour Martha's.
This is a woman especially chosen, as
: were, for the procuress and gypsey calling.
Faust. So far so good.

Mephistopheles. Something, however, is required
of us.

Faust. One good turn deserves another.
Mephistopheles. We have only to make a formal
deposition that the stretched limbs of her lord repose
in holy ground in Padua.

Faust. Wisely done i We shall first be obliged to
take the journey thither, I suppose ?

Mephistopheles. Sancta simplicitas I There is no
necessity for that. Only bear witness without knowing
much about the matter.

FAUST

Faust. If you have nothing better to propose, the
scheme is at an end.

Mephistopheles. Oh, holy man 1 There's for you now !
Is it the first time in your life that you have borne false
testimony? Have you not confidently given definitions of
Gody of the world, and of whatever moves in it — of man,
and of the workings of his head and heart — with unabashed
front, dauntless breast ? And, looking foirly at the real nature
of things, did you — you must confess you did not — did you
know as much of these matters as of Mr. Schwerdtlein's
death 1

Faust. Thou art and ever wilt be a liar, a sophist.

Mephistopheles. Aye, if one did not look a little deeper.
To-morrow, too, will you not, in all honour, make a fool of
poor Margaret, and swear to love her with all your soul ?

Faust. And truly from my heart.

Mephistopheles. Fine talking I Then will you speak of
eternal truth and love — of one exclusive, all subduing passion ;
— ^will that also come from the heart ?

Faust. Peace — it will ! — when I feel, and seek a name
for the passion, the phrenzy, but find none; then range with
all my senses through the world, grasp at all the most
sublime expressions, and call this flame, which is consuming
me, endless, eternal, eternal ! — is that a devilish play of lies !

Mephistopheles. I am right for all that.

Faust. Hear ! mark this, I beg of you, and spare my
lungs. He who is determined to be right and has but a
tongue, will be right undoubtedly. But come, I am tired of
gossiping. For you are right, particularly because I cannot
help myself.

GARDEN

Margaret on Faust's arm, Martha with Mephistophelbs,
walking up and down.

Margaret.

AM sure, Sir, that you are only trifling
with me — letting yourself down to
shame me. Travellers are wont to
put up with things out of good nature.
1 know too well that my poor prattle
cannot entertain a man of your expe-
rience.

Faust. A glance, a word from
thee, gives greater pleasure than all the wisdom of
this world. [He kisses her hand.

Margaret. Don't inconvenience yourself I How
can you kiss it? It is so coarse, so hard. I have
been obliged to do — heaven knows what not ; my
mother is indeed too close. [They pass on.

Martha. And you, Sir, are always travelling in
this manner?

MephistopJieles. Alas, that business and duty
should force us to it 1 How many a place one quits with
regret, and yet may not tarry in it I

Martha. It does very well in the wild years of youth,
to rove about freely through the world. But the evil day
93

FAUST

comes at last, and to sneak a solitary old bachelor to the
grave — that was never well for any one yet.

Mephistopheles. I shudder at the distant view of it.

Martha. Then, worthy Sir, think better of it in time.

[They pass on.

Margaret. Aye ! out of sight out of mind ! Politeness
sits easily on you. But you have plenty of friends ; they
are more sensible than I am.

Faust. O, thou excellent creature ! believe me, what
is called sensible, often better deserves the name of vanity
and narrow-mindedness.

Margaret. How ?

Faust. Alas, that simplicity, that innocence, never
appreciates itself and its own hallowed worth ! That humility,
lowliness — the highest gifts of love-fraught, bounteous
nature —

Margaret. Only think of me one little minute; I shall
have time enough to think of you.

Faust. You are much alone, I dare say?

Margaret. Yes, our household is but small, and yet it
must be looked after. We keep no maid ; I am obliged to
cook, sweep, knit and sew, and run early and late. And my
mother is so precise in everything ! Not that she has such
pressing occasion to stint herself. We might do more than
many others. My father left a nice little property — a small
house and garden in the suburbs. However, my days at
present are tolerably quiet. My brother is a soldier ; my
little sister is dead. I had my full share of trouble with
her, but I would gladly take all the anxiety upon myself
again, so dear was the child to me.

Faust. An angel, if it was like thee !

Margaret. I brought it up, and it loved me dearly. It
was born after my father's death. We gave up my mother
for lost, so sad was the condition she then lay in ; and she

GARDEN

recovered very slowly, by degrees. Thus she could not
think of suckling the poor little worm, and so I brought it
up, all by myself, with milk and water. It thus became my
own. On my arm, in my bosom, it smiled, and sprawled,
and grew.

Faust. You felt, no doubt, the purest joy.

Margaret. And many anxious hours too. The little one's
cradle stood at night by my bed-side: it could scarcely move
but I was awake; now obliged to give it drink; now to take
it to bed with me ; now, when it would not be quiet, to
rise from bed, and walk up and down in the room dandling
it ; and early in the morning, stand already at the wash-tub :
then go to market and see to the house ; and so on, day
after day. Under such circumstances, Sir, one is not always
in spirits ; but food and rest relish the better for it.

[They pass on.

Martha. The poor women have the worst of it. It is
no easy matter to convert an old bachelor.

Mephistopheles. It only depends on one like you to teach
me better.

Martha. Tell me plainly. Sir, have you never met with
any one ? Has your heart never attached itself any where ?

Mephistopheles. The proverb says — a hearth of one's
own, a good wife, are worth pearls and gold.

Martha. I mean, have you never had an inclination ?

Mephistopheles. I have been in general very politely
received.

Martha. I wished to say — was your heart never seriously
affected ?

Mephistopheles. One should never venture to joke with
women.

Martha. Ah, you do not understand me.

Mephistopheles. I am heartily sorry for it. But I
understand — that you are very kind. [They pass on.

FAUST

Faust. You knew me again, you littie angel, the moment
I entered the garden.

Margaret. Did you not see it? I cast down my eyes.

Faust. And you forgive the liberty I took — my
impudence as you were lately leaving the cathedral.

Margaret. I was frightened ; such a thing had never
happened to me before ; no one could say any thing bad of
me. Alas, thought I, has he seen any thing bold, unmaidenly,
in thy behaviour ? It seemed as if the thought suddenly
struck him, " I need stand on no ceremony with this
girl." I must own, I knew not what began to stir in
your favour here ; but certainly I was right angry with
myself for not being able to be more angry with you.

Faust. Sweet love 1

Margaret. Wait a moment !

[She plucks a star-flower^ and picks off the leaves one after the
other.

Faust. What is that for — a nosegay ?

Margaret. No, only a game.

Faust. How !

Margaret. Go ! You will laugh at me.

[She plucks off the leaves and murmurs to herself.

Faust. What are you murmuring ?

Margaret {half aloud). He loves me — he loves me not !

Faust Thou angelic being 1

Margaret continues. Loves me — not— loves me — not —
{Plucking off the last leaf xvith fond delight). — He loves me !

Faust. Yes, my child. Let this flower-prophecy be to
thee as a judgment from heaven. He loves thee ! dost
thou understand what that means ? He loves thee 1

[He takes both her hands.

Margaret. I tremble all over !

Faust. Oh, tremble not. Let this look, let this pressure
of the hand, say to thee what is unutterable 1 — ^to give

GARDEN

ourselves up wholly, and feel a bliss which must be eternal !
Eternal ! — its end would be despair ! No, no end ! no end !

[Margaret presses his hands, breaks from him, and runs
away. He stands a motnent in thought, and then follows her.

Martha (approaching). The night is coming on.

Mephistopheles. Aye, and we will away.

Martha. I would ask you to stay here longer, but it is
much too wicked a place. One would suppose no one had
any other object or occupation than to gape after his
neighbour's incomings and outgoings. And one comes to be
talked about, behave as one will. And our pair of lovers ?

Mephistoplieles. Have flown up the walk yonder. Wanton
butterflies !

Martha. He seems fond of her.

Mephistopheles. And she of him. Such is the way of
the world.

A SUMMER HOUSE

Margaret runs in, gets behind Hie door, holds the tip
of her finger to Iter lips, and peeps through the crevice-
Margaret.

COMES !

Faust {enters). Ah, rogue, is it
thus you trifle with me ? I have
caught you at last. [He kisses her.

Margaret {embracing him and
returning /Ac kiss). Dearest ! from
my heart I love thee I

[Mephistopkbles knocks.
Faust (stainping). Who is there I
Mephistophelcs. A friend.
Faust. A brute.

Mephistopheles. It is time to part, I believe.
Martha {comes up). Yes, it is late. Sir.
Faust. May 1 not accompany you ?
Margaret. My mother would — farewell !
Faust. Must I then go? Farewell!
Mart/ia. Adieu !
Margaret. Till our next speedy meeting !

[Faust and Mbphistophblbs exeunt.

Margaret. Gracious God ! How many things such a

man can think about! How abashed I stand in his presence,

and say yea to everything ! I am but a poor silly girl ; I

cannot understand what he sees in me.

FOREST AND CAVERN

Fat4st {altme).

UBLIME spirit! thou gavest me, gavest
me everything I prayed for. Not in vain
('/l^^v^^WA ^'dst thou turn thy face in fire to me.
Thou gavest me glorious nature for a
kingdom, with power to feel, to enjoy
her. It is not merely a cold wondering
visit that thou permittest me ; thou
grudgest me not to look into her deep bosom, as
into the bosom of a friend. Thou passest in review
before me the whole series of animated things, and
teachest me to know my brothers in the still wood,
in the air, and in the water. And when the storm
roars and creaks in the forest, and the giant-pine,
precipitating its neighbour- boughs and neighbour-
stems, sweeps, crushing, down, — and the mountain thunders
with a dead hollow muttering to the fall, — then thou bearest
me off to the sheltered cave ; then thou showest me to
myself, and deep mysterious wonders of my own breast
reveal themselves. And when the clear moon, with its
soothing influences, rises full in my view, — from the wall-
like rocks, out of the damp underwood, the silvery fonns of
past ages hover up to me, and soften the austere pleasure
of contemplation.

Oh, now I feel that nothing perfect falls to the lot of
man ! With this beatitude, which brings me nearer and

FAUST

nearer to the gods, thou gavest me the companion, whom
already I cannot do without ; although, cold and insolent, he
degrades me in my own eyes, and turns thy gifts to nothing
with a breath. He is ever kindling a wildfire in my heart
for that lovely image. Thus do I reel from desire to enjoy-
ment, and in enjoyment languish for desire.

MephistopJieles {enters). Have you not had enough of
this kind of life ^ How can you delight in it for any length
of time ? It is all well enough to try once, but then on
again to something new.

Faust. I would you had something else to do than to
plague me in my happier hour.

Mephistopheles. Well, well ! I w^ill let you alone if you
wish. You need not say so in earnest. Truly, it is little to
lose an ungracious, peevish and crazy companion in you.
The livelong day one has one's hands full. One cannot
read in your worship's face what pleases you, and what to
let alone.

Faust. That is just the right tone ! He would fain be
thanked for wearying me to death.

Mephistopheles. Poor son of earth ! what sort of life
would you have led without me ^ I have cured you, for
some time to come, of the crotchets of imagination, and, but
for me, you would already have taken your departure from
this globe. Why mope in caverns and fissures of rocks, like
an owl .^ Why sip in nourishment from sodden moss and
dripping stone, like a toad .? A fair, sweet pastime ! The
doctor still sticks to you.

Faust. Dost thou understand what new life-power this
wandering in the desert procures for me } Aye, could'st
thou have but a dim presentiment of it, thou would'st be
devil enough to grudge me my enjoyment.

Mephistopheles. A super-earthly pleasure ! To lie on
the mountains in darkness and dew — clasp earth and heaven

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FOREST AND CAVERN

ecstatically — swell yourself up to a godhead — rake through
the earth's marrow with your thronging presentiments — feel
the whole six days' work in your bosom — in haughty might
enjoy I know not what — now overflow, in love's raptures,
into all, with your earthly nature cast aside — and then the
lofty intuition {with a gesture) — I must not say how — to end I

Faust. Fye upon you 1

Mephistapheles. That is not to your mind. You are
entitled to cry fye ! so morally ! We must not name to
chaste ears what chaste hearts cannot renounce. And, in a
word, I do not grudge you the pleasure of lying to yourself
occasionally. But you will not keep it up long. You are
already driven back into your old course, and, if this holds
much longer, will be fretted into madness or torture and
horror. Enough of this ! your little love sits yonder at home,
and all to her is confined and melancholy. You are never
absent from her thoughts. She loves you all subduingly.
At first, your passion came overflowing, like a snow-flushed
rivulet ; you have poured it into her heart, and lo ! your
rivulet is dry again. Methinks, instead of reigning in the
woods, your worship would do well to reward the poor young
monkey for her love. The time seems lamentably long to
her ; she stands at the window and watches the clouds roll
away over the old town-walls. "Were I a bird ! " so runs her
song, during all the day and half the night. One while she
is cheerful, mostly cast down, — one while fairly outwept: —
then, again, composed, to all appearance — and ever lovesick I

Faust. Serpent I serpent I

Mephistapheles (aside). Good 1 if I can but catch you !

Faust. Reprobate ! take thyself away, and name not the
lovely woman. Bring not the desire for her sweet body
before my half-distracted senses again I

Mephistapheles. What is to be done, then ? She thinks
that you are ofi^, and in some manner you are.

lOI H

FAUST

Faust. I am near her, and were I ever so far oflF, I
can never forget, never lose her. Nay, I already envy the
body of the Lord when her lips are touching it.

Mephistopheles. Very well, my friend. I have often
envied you the twin-pair, which feed among roses.

Fatist. Pander ! begone.

Mephistopheles. Good again ! You rail, and I cannot
help laughing. The God, who made lad and lass, well
understood the noble calling of making opportunity too.
But away, it is a mighty matter to be sad about ! You
should betake yourself to your mistress's chamber — not, I
think, to death.

Faust. What are the joys of heaven in her arms } Let
me kindle on her breast ! Do I not feel her wretchedness
unceasingly.^ Am I not the outcast — the houseless one.^ —
the monster without aim or rest — who, like a cataract,
dashed from rock to rock, in devouring fury towards the
precipice ? And she, upon the side, with childlike simplicity,
in her little cot upon the little mountain field, and all her
homely cares embraced within that little world 1 And I,
the hated of God — it was not enough for me to grasp the
rocks and smite them to shatters .? Her, her peace, must
I undermine ! — Hell, thou could'st not rest without this
sacrifice I Devil, help me to shorten the pang ! Let what
must be, be quickly ! Let her fate fall crushing upon me,
and both of us perish together I

Mephistopheles. How it seethes and glows again ! Get
in, and comfort her, you fool ! — When such a noddle sees no
outlet, it immediately represents to itself the end. He who
bears himself bravely, for ever ! And yet, on other occasions,
you have a fair spice of the devil in you. I know nothing
in the world more insipid than a devil that despairs.

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MARGARET'S ROOM

Margaret {alone, at the spinning wheel).

PEACE is gone;
My heart is heavy ;
I shall find it never,
And never more.

Where I have him not.
Is the grave to me.
The whole world
Is embittered to me.

My peace is gone ;
My heart is heavy ;
I shall find it never,
And never more.

For him alone look I
Out at the window !
For him alone go I
Out of the house I
103

FAUST

His stately step,

His noble form ;

The smile of his mouth,

The power of his eyes,

And of his speech
The witching flow ;
The pressure of his hand,
And, ah ! his kiss !

My peace is gone ;
My heart is heavy ;
I shall And it never,
And never more.

My bosom struggles

After him.

Ah ! could I enfold him

And hold him !

And kiss him

As I would !

On his kisses

I should die away !

MARTHA'S GARDEN

Margaret — Faust.

Margaret.

ROMISE me, Henry!
Faust. What I can !
Margaret. Now, tell me, how do
you feel as to religion ? You are a
dear, good man, but I believe you
don't think much of it.

Faust. No more of that, my child !
you feel I love you : I would lay
down my life for those I love, nor would I deprive
any of their feeling and their church.

Margaret. That is not right ; we must believe
in it.

Faust. Must we ?

Margaret. Ah ! if I had any influence over you 1
Besides, you do not honour the holy sacraments.
Faust. I honour them.
Margaret. But without desiring them. It is long since
you went to mass or confession. Do you believe in God ?

Faust. My love, who dares say, I believe in God ? You
may ask priests and philosophers, and their answer will
appear but a mockery of the questioner.
Margaret. You don't believe, then ?
105

FAUST

Faust. Mistake me not, thou lovely one ! Who dare
name him ? and who avow : " I believe in him ? " Who
feel — and dare to say : " I believe in him not ? " The All-
embracer, the All-sustainer, does he not embrace and
sustain thee, me, himself ? Does not the heaven arch itself
there above ? — Lies not the earth firm here below ? — And do
not eternal stars rise, kindly twinkling, on high ? — Are we
not looking into each other's eyes, and is not all thronging
to thy head and heart, and weaving in eternal mystery,
invisibly — visibly, about thee ? With it fill thy heart, big as
it is, and when thou art wholly blest in the feeling, then
call it what thou wilt ! Call it Bliss ! — Heart ! — Love ! —
God ! I have no name for it ! Feeling is all in all. Name
is sound and smoke, clouding heaven's glow !

Margaret. That is all vei^y fine and good. The priest
says nearly the same, only with somewhat different
words.

Faust. All hearts in all places under the blessed light
of day say it, each in its own language — why not in mine ?

Margaret. Thus taken, it may pass; but, for all that,
there is something wrong about it, for thou hast no
Christianity.

Faust. Dear child !

Margaret. I have long been grieved at the company I
see you in.

Faust. How so ?

Margaret. The man you have with you is hateful to
me in my inmost soul. Nothing in the whole course of my
life has given my heart such a pang, as the repulsive visage
of that man.

Faust. Fear him not, dear child.

Margaret. His presence makes my blood creep. I have
kind feelings towards everybody else. But, much as I long
to see you, I have an unaccountable horror of that man,

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MARTHA'S GARDEN

and hold him for a rogue besides. God forgive me, if I do
him wrong.

Faust. There must be such oddities, notwithstanding.

Margaret. I would not live with the like of him.
Whenever he comes to the door, he looks in so mockingly,
and with fury but half-suppressed; one sees that he
sympathises with nothing. It is written on his forehead that
he can love no living soul. I feel so happy in thy arms —
so unrestrained — in such glowing abandonment ; and his
presence closes up my heart's core.

Fatist. You misgiving angel, you !

Margaret. It overcomes me to such a degree, that when
he but chances to join us, I even think I do not love you
any longer. And in his presence, I should never be able to
pray; and this eats into my heart. You, too, Henry, must
feel the same.

Faust. You have an antipathy, that is all.

Margaret. I must go now.

Faust. Ah, can I never recline one little hour undis-
turbed upon thy bosom, and press heart to heart and soul
to soul !

Margaret. Ah, did I but sleep alone ! I would gladly
leave the door unbolted for you this very night. But my
mother does not sleep sound, and were she to catch us, I
should die upon the spot.

Faust. Thou angel, there is no fear of that. You see
this phial ! Only three drops in her drink will gently envelope
nature in deep sleep.

Margaret. What would I not do for thy sake ? It will
do her no harm, I hope.

Faust. Would I recommend it to you, my love, if it
could ^

Margaret. If, best of men, I do but look on you, I know
not what drives me to comply with your will. I have already

107

FAUST

done so much for you, that next to nothing now remains for
me to do. [Exit.

MepfUstopheles {wlio enters). The silly monkey I is
she gone.

Faust. Hast thou been playing the spy again ?

Mephistopheles. I heard what passed plainly enough.
You were catechised, Doctor. Much good may it do you.
The girls are certainly deeply interested in knowing whether
a man be pious and plain after the old fashion. They say to
themselves : 'Mf he is pliable in that matter, he will also be
pliable to us."

Faust. Thou, monster as thou art, canst not conceive
how this fond, faithful soul, full of her faith, which,
according to her notions, is alone capable of conferring
eternal happiness, feels a holy horror to think that she must
hold her best-beloved for lost.

Mephistopheles. Thou super-sensual, sensual lover, a
chit of a girl leads thee by the nose.

Faust. Thou abortion of dirt and fire !

MephistopJieles. And she is knowing in physiognomy
too. In my presence she feels she knows not how. This
little mask betokens some hidden sense. She feels that
I am most assuredly a genius — perhaps the devil himself.
To-night, then ?

Faust. What is that to you ?

Mephistopheles. I have my pleasure in it, though.

I ■

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A\9^ 9^1 Id tB'^o^MiVL

Bessy.

AT THE WELL

Margaret and Bessy with pitchers.

AVE you heard nothing of Barbara?
Margaret. Not a word. I go very
little abroad.

Certainly, Sybella told it me
to-day. She has even made a fool of
herself at last. That comes of playing
the fine lady.

Margaret. How so ?
It is a bad business. She feeds two
when she eats and drinks now.
Margaret. Ah I

She is rightly served at last. What a
time she has hung upon the fellow ! There was a
promenading and a gallanting to village junkettings
and dancing booths— she forsooth must be the first
in everything — he was ever treating her to tarts and
wine. She thought great things of her beauty, and was so
lost to honour as not to be ashamed to receive presents from
him. There was a hugging and kissing — and lo, the flower
is gone 1

Margaret. Poor thing I

Bessy. You really pity her I When the like of us were
at the spinning, our mothers never let us go down at night.
109

FAUST

She stood sweet with her lover ; on the bench before the
door, and in the dark walk, the time was never too long for
them. But now she may humble herself, and do penance,
in a white sheet, in the church.

Margaret. He will surely make her his wife.

Bessy. He would be a fool if he did. A brisk young
fellow has the world before him. Besides, he's off.

Margaret. That's not handsome !

Bessy. If she gets him, it will go ill with her. The
boys will tear her garland for her, and we will strew cut
straw before her door. Exit.

Margaret (going home). How stoutly I could formerly
revile, if I saw a poor maiden make a slip ! how I could
never find words enough to speak of another's shame !
How black it seemed to me ! and, blacken it as I would, it
was never black enough for me — and blessed myself and
felt so grand, and am now myself a prey to sin ! Yet — all
that drove me to it, was, God knows, so sweet, so dear!

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ZWINGER

In the nidtc of tlie wall a devotional image of tlte Mater
Dolorosa, with pots of flowers before it.

Margaret (places fresh flowers in the pots).

INCLINE,
Thou full of pain,
Thy countenance graciously to my
distress.

The sword in thy heart,

With thousand pangs

Up-lookest thou to thy Son's death.

To the Father look'st thou,

And sendest sighs

Aloft for his and thy distress.

Who feels

How rages

My torment to the quick ?

How the poor heart in me throbbeth.

How it trembleth, how it yearneth,

Knowest thou, and thou alone 1

FAUST

Whithersoe*er I go,

What woe, what woe, what woe,

Grows within my bosom here!

Hardly, alas, am I alone,

I weep, I weep, I weep.

My heart is bursting within me !

The flower-pots on my window-sill
Bedewed I with tears, alas !
When I at morning's dawn
Plucked these flowers for thee.

When brightly in my chamber
The rising sun's rays shone.
Already, in all wretchedness.
Was I sitting up in my bed.

Help ! rescue me from shame and death I

Ah, incline.

Thou full of pain,

Thy countenance graciously to my distress 1

NIGHT-STREET BEFORE
MARGARET'S DOOR

Valentine (a Soldier, Margaret's brother).

I made one of a company, where many
like to show ofF, and the fellows were
loud in their praises of the flower of
maidens, and drowned their commenda-
tion in bumpers, — with my elbows
leaning on the board, I sat in quiet
confidence, and listened to all their
swaggering ; then I stroke my beard with a smile, and
take the bumper in my hand, and say : " All very well
in its way ! but is there one in the whole country to
compare with my dear Margaret, — who is fit to hold a
candle to my sister ? " Hob and nob, kling I klang !
so it went round I Some shouted, " he is right ; she
is the pearl of the whole sex ; " and all those praisers
were dumb. And now — it is enough to make one tear
out one's hair by the roots, and run up the walls — I
shall be twitted by the sneers and taunts of every
knave, shall sit like a bankrupt debtor, and sweat at every
chance word. And though I might crush them at a blow,
yet I could not call them liars. Who comes there ? Who
is slinking this way ? If I mistake not, there are two of
them. If it is he, I wilt have at him at once ; he shall not
leave this spot alive.

1 13

FAUST

Faust. How from the window of the Sacristy there,
the light of the eternal lamp flickers upwards, and glimmers
weaker and weaker at the sides, and darkness thickens
round ! Just so is all night-like in my breast.

MephUtopheles. And I feel languishing like the tom-cat,
that sneaks along the fire-ladders and then creeps stealthily
round the walls. I feel quite virtuously, — with a spice of
thievish pleasure, a spice of wantonness. In such a manner
does the glorious Walpurgis night already thrill me through
every limb. The day after to-morrow it comes round to us
again ; there one knows what one wakes for.

Faust. In the mean time, can that be the treasure
rising, — that which I see glimmering yonder ^

Mephistopheles. You will soon enjoy the lifting up of
the casket. I lately took a squint at it. There are capital
lion-dollars within.

Faust. Not a trinket — not a ring — to adorn my lovely
mistress with ?

Mephistoplieles. I think I saw some such thing there
as a sort of pearl necklace.

Faust. That is well. I feel sorry when I go to her
without a present.

Mephistopheles. You ought not to regret having some
enjoyment gratis. Now that the heavens are studied thick
with stars, you shall hear a true piece of art. I will sing
her a moral song, to make a fool of her the more certainly.

[He sings to the guitar,

" What are you doing here, Catherine, before your lover's
door at morning dawn ? Stay, and beware 1 he lets thee in
a maid, not to come out a maid.

** Beware ! If it be done, then good night to you, you
poor, poor things. If you love yourselves, do nothing to
pleasure any spoiler, except with the ring on the finger.

Valentine {coines forward). Whom art thou luring here ?

114

STREET

by God ! thou cursed ratcatcher ! First, to the devil with
the instrument, then to the devil with the singer.

Mephistopheles. The guitar is broken to pieces ! It is
all up with it.

Valentine. Now then for a skull-cracking.

MephistopJieles {to Faust). Don't give way, Doctor !
Courage ! Stick close, and do as I tell you. Out with your
toasting-iron I Thrust away, and I will parry.

Valentine. Parry that I

Mephistopheles. Why not?

Valentine. And that !

Mephistopheles. To be sure.

Valentine. I believe the devil is fighting. What is
that ? My hand i^ already disabled.

MephistopJieles {to Faust). Thrust home!

Valentine falls. Oh, torture !

Mephistopheles. The clown is tamed now. But away !
We must vanish in a twinkling, for a horrible outcry is
already raised. I am perfectly at home with the police, but
should find it hard to clear scores with the criminal courts.

Martha {at the window). Out ! out !

Margaret {at the window). Bring a light !

Martlia {as be/ore). They are railing and scuffling,
screaming and fighting.

People. Here lies one dead already.

Martha {coming out). Have the murderers escaped ^

Margaret {coming out) . Who lies here ^

People. Thy mother's son.

Margaret. Almighty God ! what misery I

Valentine. I am dying ! that is soon said, and sooner
still done. Why do you women stand howling and wailing?
Come here and listen to me. [All come round him.

Look ye, my little Margaret I you are still young ! you
are not yet adroit enough, and manage your matters ill. I

FAUST

tell it you in confidence, since you are, once for all, a whore,
be one in good earnest.

Margaret. Brother ! God I What do you mean ?

Valentine. Leave our Lord God out of the game.
What is done, alas ! cannot be undone, and things will take
their course. You begin privately with one; more of them
will soon follow ; and when a dozen have had you, the whole
town will have you too.

When first Shame is born, she is brought into the world
clandestinely, and the veil of night is drawn over her head
and ears. Aye, people would fain stifle her. But when she
grows and waxes big, she walks flauntingly in open day, and
yet is not a whit the fairer. The uglier her face becomes,
the more she courts the light of day.

By my truth, I already see the time when all honest
towns-people will turn aside from you, you whore, as from
an infected corpse. Your heart will sink within you when
they look you in the face. You will wear no golden chain
again ! No more will you stand at the altar in the church,
or take pride in a fair lace collar at the dance. You will
hide yourself in some dark miserable corner, amongst beggars
and cripples, and, even should God forgive you, be cursed
upon earth !

Martha. Commend your soul to God's mercy. Will you
yet heap the sin of slander upon your soul.

Valentine. Could I but get at thy withered body, thou
shameless bawd, I should hope to find a full measure of
pardon for all my sins!

Margaret. My brother ! Oh, this agonizing pang !

Valentine. Have done with tears, I tell you. When you
renounced honour, you gave me the deepest heart-stab of
all. I go through death's sleep unto God, a soldier and a
brave one. ^^« dies.

CATHEDRAL

SERVICE, ORGAN AND ANTHEM.

Margaret amongst a number of People. Evil Spirit

behind Margaret.
Evil Spirit.

different was it with thee,
Margaret,
When still full of innocence
Thou earnest to the altar there —
Out of the well-worn little book
Lispedst prayers.
Half child-sport,
Half God in the heart !
Margaret !

Where is thy head ?
In thy heart
What crime ?

Prayest thou for thy mother's soul — who
Slept over into long, long pain through thee?
Whose blood on thy threshold ?

And under thy heart

Stirs it not quickening even now.
Torturing itself and thee
With its foreboding presence ?

117 I

FAUST

Margaret.

Woe ! woe !

Would that I were free from the thoughts,

That come over me and across me

Despite of me !
Chorus.

Dies irae, dies ilia

Solvet saeclum in favilla. [Organ plays.

Evil Spirit.

Horror seizes thee !

The Trump sounds I

The graves tremble !

And thy heart

From the repose of its ashes

For fiery torment

Brought to life again,

Trembles up !
Margaret.

Would that I were hence I

I feel as if the organ

Stifled my breath,

As if the anthem

Dissolved my heart's core !
Chorus.

Judex ergo cum sedebit,

Quidquid latet adparebit,

Nil inultum remanebit.
Margaret.

I feel so thronged !

The wall-pillars

Close on me !

The vaulted roof

Presses on me ! — Air !

ii8

The Et^^pffi^Kmpmg Margaret in the Cathedral.

.\D*^b3c\)D3 9c\) n'l tsioi^iDVi v^'itQm^t t^i^qt* \i^3 ^AT

"HT"

'fl

n^^H

•!i|

li^H

1 -

CATHEDRAL

Evil Spirit.

Hide thyself ! Sin and shame

Remain, unhidden.

Air? Light?

Woe to thee !
Chorus.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus ?

Quern patronum rogaturus ?

Cum vix Justus sit securus.
Evil Spirit.

The glorified from thee

Avert their faces.

The pure shudder

To reach thee their hands.

Woe!
Chorus.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus ?
Margaret.

Neighbour ! your smelling-bottle !

[She swoons away.

I 2

MAY-DAY NIGHT

THE HARTZ MOUNTAINS
District of Schirke and Elend. — Faust — Mbphistopheles.
M^histopheles.

you not long for a broomstick ? For
my part I should be glad of the
roughest he-goat. By this road we
are still far from our destination.

Fausl. So long as I feel fresh
upon my legs, this knotted stick suffices me. What
is the use of shortening the way? To creep along
the labyrinth of the vales, and then ascend these
rocks, from which the ever-bubbling spring dashes
—this is the pleasure which gives zest to such a path.
The spring is already weaving in the birch trees,
and even the pine is beginning to feel it, — ought it
not to have some effect upon our limbs ?

Mephisiopheles. Verily, I feel nothing of it.
All is wintry in my body, and I should prefer frost
and snow upon my path. How mournfully the imperfect
disk of the red moon rises with belated glare I and gives so
bad a light, that, at every step, one runs against a tree or
a rock. With your leave, I will call a will-o'the-wisp. I see
one yonder, burning right merrily. Holloa, there, my friend I

MAY-DAY NIGHT

may I entreat your company ? Why wilt thou blaze away
so uselessly ? Be so good as to light us up along here.

Will'O' the- Wisp. Out of reverence, I hope, I shall
succeed in subduing my unsteady nature. Our course is
ordinarily but a zigzag one.

Mephistopheles. Ha! ha! you think to imitate men.
But go straight, in the devil's name, or I will blow your
flickering life out.

Will-o' the- Wisp. I see well that you are master here,
and will willingly accommodate myself to you. But consider !
the mountain is magic-mad to-night, and if a will-o'the-wisp
is to show you the way, you must not be too particular.

Faust, Mbphistophblbs, Will-o*thb-Wisp, in alternating song.

Into the sphere of dreams and enchantments, it seems,
have we entered. Lead us right, and do yourself credit ! —
that we may advance betimes in the wide, desolate regions.

See trees after trees, how rapidly they move by; and
the cliffs, that bow, and the long-snouted rocks, how they
snort, how they blow !

Through the stones, through the turf, brook and brookling
hurry down. Do I hear rustling ? do I hear songs ? do I
hear the sweet plaint of love ? — voices of those blest days ?
— what we hope, what we love 1 And Echo, like the tale of
old times, sends back the sound.

Tu-whit-tu-whoo — it sounds nearer ; the owl, the pewet,
and the jay, — have they all remained awake ? Are those
salamanders through the brake, with their long legs, thick
paunches ? And the roots, like snakes, wind from out of
rock and sand, and stretch forth strange filaments to terrify,
to seize us ; from coarse speckles, instinct with life, they
set polypus-fibres for the traveller. And the mice, thousand-
coloured, in whole tribes, through the moss and through the
heath I And the glow-worms fly, in crowded swarms, a
confounding escort.

121

FAUST

But tell me whether we stand still, or whether we are
moving on. Everything seems to turn round, — rocks and
trees, which make grimaces, and the will-o'the-wisps, which
multiply, which swell themselves out.

Mephistopheles. Keep a stout hold of my skirt ! Here
is a central peak, from which one sees with wonder how
Mammon is glowing in the mountain.

Faust. How strangely a melancholy light, of morning
red, glimmers through the mountain gorges, and quivers even
to the deepest recesses of the precipice. Here rises a mine-
damp, there float exhalations. Here glow sparkles out of
vapour and gauze, then steals along like a fine thread, and
then again bursts forth like a fountain. Here it winds, a
whole track, with a hundred veins, through the valley ; and
here, in the compressed corner, it scatters itself at once.
There sparks are sputtering near, like golden sand up-
sprinkled. But, see I the wall of rocks is on fire in all its
height.

Mephistopheles. Does not Sir Mammon illuminate his
palace magnificently for this festival ? It is lucky that you
have seen it. I already see traces of the boisterous guests.

Faust. How the storm-blast is raging through the air!
With what thumps it strikes against my neck !

Mephistopheles. You must lay hold of the old ribs of
the rock, or it will hurl you down into this abyss. A mist
thickens the night. Hark ! what a crashing through the
forest ! The owls fly scared away. Hark, to the splintering
of the pillars of the ever-green palaces ! the crackling and
snapping of the boughs, the mighty groaning of the trunks,
the creaking and yawning of the roots ! — All come crashing
down, one over the other, in fearfully-confused fall; and
the winds hiss and howl through the wreck-covered cliff^s !
Dost thou hear voices aloft ? — in the distance ? — close at hand ?
— Aye, a raving witch-song streams along the whole mountain.

122

I I

MAY-DAY NIGHT

The WitcheSj in chorus. To the Brocken the witches
repair ! The stubble is yellow, the sown-fields are green.
There the huge multitude is assembled. Sir Urian sits at
the top. On they go, over stone and stock ; the witches,
the he-goats.

Voices. Old Baubo comes alone ; she rides upon a
farrow-sow.

Chorus. Then honour to whom honour is due ! Mother
Baubo to the front, and lead the way! A proper sow and
mother upon her, — then follows the whole swarm of witches.

Voice. Which way did you come ?

Voice. By Ilsenstein. I there peeped into the owl's
nest. She gave me such a look !

Voice. Oh, drive to hell ! What a rate you are riding at !

Voice. She has grazed me in passing: only look at the
wound !

Chorus of Witches. The way is broad — the way is long.
What mad throng is this ? The fork sticks — the besom
scratches : the child is suffocated — the mother bursts.

Wizards {half -char us). We steal along like snails in
their house; the women are all before; for, in going to the
house of the wicked one, woman is a thousand steps in
advance.

The other Half. We do not take that so precisely. The
woman does it with a thousand steps; but, let her make as
much haste as she can, the man does it at a single bound.

Voices {above). Come with us, come with us, from
Felsensee !

Voices {from below). We should like to mount with you.
We wash, and are thoroughly clean, but we are ever barren.

Both Choruses. The wind is still, the stars fly, the
melancholy moon is glad to hide herself. The magic-choir
sputters forth sparks by thousands in its whizzing.

Voice {from below). Hold ! Hold !

123

FAUST

Voice {from above). Who calls there, from the cleft
in the rock ?

Voice {from below). Take me with you ! take me with
you ! I have been mounting for three hundred years already,
and cannot reach the top. I would fain be with my fellows.

Both Choruses. The besom carries, the stick carries,
the fork carries, the he-goat carries. Who cannot raise
himself to-night is lost for ever.

Demi' Witch {below). I have been tottering after
such a length of time ; how far the others are a-head
already ! I have no rest at home, — and don't get it here
neither.

Chorus of Witches. The salve gives courage to the
witches ; a rag is good for a sail ; every trough makes a
good ship ; he will never fly, who flew not to-night.

Both CJwruses. And when we round the peak, sweep
along the ground, and cover the heath far and wide with
your swarm of witch-hood. [They let themselves down.

Mephistopheles. There's crowding and pushing, rustling
and clattering ! There's whizzing and twirling, bustling and
babbling ! There's glittering, sparkling, stinking, burning !
A true witch-element ! But stick close to me, or we shall
be separated in a moment. Where art thou ?

Faust {in the distance). Here !

Mephistopheles. What ! already torn away so far ? I
must exert my authority as master. Room ! Squire Voland
comes ! Make room, sweet people, make room ! Here,
Doctor, take hold of me ! and now, at one bound, let us
get clear of the crowd. It is too mad, even for the like of
me. Hard by there, shines something with a peculiar light.
Something attracts me towards those bushes. Come along,
we will slip in there.

Faust. Thou spirit of contradiction ! But go on ! thou
may'st lead me. But it was wisely done, to be sure ! We

124

MAY-DAY NIGHT

repair to the Brocken on Walpurgis' night — to try and
isolate ourselves when we get here.

Mephistopheles. Only see what variegated flames ! A
merry club is met together. One is not alone in a small
company.

Faust I should prefer being above, though ! I already
see flame and eddying smoke. Yonder the multitude is
streaming to the Evil One. Many a riddle must there be
untied.

Mephistopheles. And many a riddle is also tied anew.
Let the great world bluster as it will, we will here house
ourselves in peace. It is an old saying, that in the great
world one makes little worlds. Yonder I see young witches,
naked and bare, and old ones, who prudently cover
themselves. Be compliant, if only for my sake ; the trouble
is small, the sport is great. I hear the tuning of instruments.
Confounded jangle ! One must accustom oneself to it.
Come along, come along, it cannot be otherwise. I will go
forward and introduce you, and I shall lay you under a
fresh obligation. What sayest thou, friend ? This is no
trifling space. Only look ! you can hardly see the end. A
hundred fires are burning in a row. People are dancing,
talking, cooking, drinking, love-making ! Now tell me where
anything better is to be found !

Faust, To introduce us here, do you intend to present
yourself as wizard or devil ?

Mephistopheles. In truth, I am much used to go
incognito. But one shows one's orders on gala days. I
have no garter to distinguish me, but the cloven foot is
held in high honour here. Do you see the snail there ^ she
comes creeping up, and with her feelers has already found
out something in me. Even if I would, I could not deny
myself here. But come ! we will go from fire to fire ; I
will be the pander, and you shall be the gallant.

FAUST

[To some who are sitting rouftd expiring embers.

Old gentlemen, what are you doing here at the extremity ?
I should commend you, did I find you nicely in the middle,
in the thick of the riot and youthful revelry. Every one is
surely enough alone at home.

General. Who can put his trust in nations, though he
has done ever so much for them ? For with the people, as
with the women, youth has always the upper hand.

Minister. At present people are wide astray from the
right path — the good old ones for me ! For, verily, when
we were all in all, that was the true golden age.

Parvenu. We, too, were certainly no fools, and often
did what we ought not. But now every thing is turned
topsy-turvy, and just when we wished to keep it firm.

Author. Who now-a-days, speaking generally, likes to
read a work of even moderate sense .^ And as for the rising
generation, they were never so malapert.

Mephistopheles {who all at once appears very old). I
feel the people ripe for doomsday, now that I ascend the
witch-mountain for the last time; and because my own cask
runs thick, the world also is come to the dregs.

A Witch {who sells old clot lies and frippery). Do not
pass by in this manner, gentlemen ! Now is your time. Look
at my wares attentively ; I have them of all sorts. And yet
there is nothing in my shop — which has not its fellow upon
earth — that has not, some time or other, wrought proper
mischief to mankind and to the world. There is no dagger
here, from which blood has not flowed ; no chalice, from
which hot consuming poison has not been poured into a
healthy body ; no trinket, which has not seduced some amiable
woman ; no sword, which has not cut some tie asunder,
which has not perchance stabbed an adversary from behind.

Mephistopheles. Cousin ! you understand but ill the
temper of the times. Done, happened ! Happened, done !

126

MAY-DAY NIGHT

Take to dealing in novelties; novelties only have any
attraction for us.

Faust. If I can but keep my senses ! This is a fair
with a vengeance!

Mephistopheles. The whole throng struggles upwards.
You think to shove, and you yourself are shoved.

Faust. Who, then, is that?

Mephistopheles. Mark her well ! That is Lilith.

Faust. Who ?

Mephistopheles. Adam's first wife. Beware of her fair
hair, of that ornament in which she shines pre-eminent.
When she ensnares a young man with it, she does not let
him ofF again so easily.

Faust. There sit two, the old one with the young one.
They have already capered a good bit I

Mephistopheles. That has neither stop nor stay to-night.
A new dance is beginning ; come, we will set to.

Faust {dancing with the young one). I had once upon
a time a fair dream. In it, I saw an apple-tree; two lovely
apples glittered on it : they enticed me, I climbed up.

The Fair One. You are very fond of apples, and have
been so from Paradise downwards, I feel moved with joy,
that my garden also bears such.

Mephistopheles (with the old one). I had once upon a
time a wild dream. . . .

The Old One. I present my best respects to the knight
of the cloven foot. . . .

Procktophantasmist. Confounded mob ! how dare you ?
Was it not long since demonstrated to you? A spirit never
stands upon ordinary feet ; and you are actually dancing
away, like us mortals I

The Fair One. What does he come to our ball for then ?

Faust {dancing). Ha ! He is absolutely everywhere. He
must appraise what others dance I If he cannot talk about

X27

FAUST

every step, the step is as good as never made at all. He
is most vexed, when we go forwards. If you would but
turn round in a circle, as he does in his old mill, he would
term that good, I dare say ; particularly were you to consult
him about it.

Procktophantasmist. You are still there, then ! No, that
is unheard of ! But vanish ! We have enlightened the
world, you know! That devil's crew, they pay no attention
to rules. We are so wise, — and Tegel is haunted, notwith-
standing! How long have I not been sweeping away
at the delusion ; and it never becomes clean ! It is
unheard of 1

The Fair One. Have done boring us here, at any rate,
then 1

Procktophantasmist. I tell you, Spirits, to your faces,
I endure not the despotism of the spirit. My spirit cannot
exercise it. {The dancing goes on,) To-night, I see, I shall
succeed in nothing ; but I am always ready for a journey ;
and still hope, before my last step, to get the better of
devils and poets.

Mephistoplteles. He will, forthwith, seat himself in a
puddle ; that is his mode of soothing himself ; and when
leeches have amused themselves on his rump, he is cured
of spirits and spirit. {To Faust, wJio lias left tJte dance.)
Why do you leave the pretty girl, who sung so sweetly to
you in the dance ^

Fatist. Ah ! in the middle of the song, a red mouse
jumped out of her mouth.

Mephistoplieles. There is nothing out of the way in that.
One must not be too nice about such matters. Enough
that the mouse was not grey. Who cares for such things
in a moment of enjoyment.

Faust. Then I saw

Mephistoplieles. What ?

128

MAY-DAY NIGHT

Faust. Mephisto, do you see yonder a pale, fair girl,
standing alone and afar off! She drags herself but slowly
from the place : she seems to move with fettered feet. I
must own, she seems to me to resemble poor Margaret.

Mephistopheles. Have nothing to do with that I no good
can come of it to any one. It is a creation of enchantment,
is lifeless, — an idol. It is not well to meet it ; the blood of
man thickens at its chill look, and he is well nigh turned to
stone. You have heard, no doubt, of Medusa.

Faust. In truth, they are the eyes of a corpse, which
there was no fond hand to close. That is the bosom,
which Margaret yielded to me ; that is the sweet body,
which I enjoyed.

Mephistoplieles. That is sorcery, thou easily deluded
fool ; for she wears to every one the semblance of his
beloved.

Faust. What bliss ! what suffering ! I cannot tear
myself from that look. How strangely does a single red
line, no thicker than the back of a knife, adorn that lovely
neck.

Mephistopheles. Right 1 I see it too. She can also
carry her head under her arm, for Perseus has cut it off
for her. But ever this fondness for delusion ! Come up
the hill, however ; here all is as merry as in the Prater ;
and if I am not bewitched, I actually see a theatre. What
is going on here, then ?

Servihilis. They will recommence immediately. A new
piece, the last of seven ; — it is the custom here to give so
many. A dilettante has written it, and dilettanti play it.
Excuse me. Gentlemen, but I must be off. It is my
dilettante office to draw up the curtain.

Mephistopheles. When I find you upon the Blocksberg, —
that is just what I approve ; for this is the proper place
for you.

129

MAY-DAY NIGHTS DREAM;

OR,

OBERON AND TITANIA'S

GOLDEN WEDDING-FEAST

INTERMEZZO

I ■

INTERMEZZO

Theatre-Manager.

we rest for once; we, the brave
sons of Mieding. Old mountain
and damp dale — that is the whole
scenery !

Herald. That the wedding-feast

may be golden, fifty-years are to be

past ; but if the quarrel is over, 1 shall

like the golden the better.

Oheron. If ye spirits are with me, this is the

time to show it : the king and the queen, they are

united anew.

Puck. When Puck comes and whirls himself
about, and his foot goes whisking in the dance, —
hundreds come after to rejoice along with him.

Ariel. Ariel awakes the song, in tones of
heavenly purity ; his music lures many trifles, but it also
lures the fair.

Oheron. Wedded ones, who would agree, — let them take
a lesson from us two. To make a couple love each other,
it is only necessary to separate them.

Titania. If the husband looks gruff, and the wife be
whimsical, take hold of both of them immediately. Conduct
me her to the South, and him to the extremity of the North.

133 B

FAUST

Orchestra-Tutti {Fortissimo). Flies' snouts, and gnats*
noses, with their kindred ! Frog in the leaves, and cricket
in the grass : they are the musicians.

Solo. See, here comes the bagpipe 1 It is the soap-
bubble. Hark to the Schnecke-schnicke-schnack through
its snub-nose.

Spirit that is fashioning itself. Spider's foot and toad's
belly, and little wings for the little wight ! It does not
make an animalcule, it is true, but it makes a little poem.

A pair of Lovers. Little step and high bound, through
honey-dew and exhalations. Truly, you trip it me enough,
but you do not mount into the air.

Inquisitive Traveller. Is not this masquerading-mockery ?
Can I believe my eyes ? To see the beauteous god, Oberon,
here to-night, too I

Orthodox. No claws, no tail I Yet it stands beyond a
doubt that, even as "The Gods of Greece," so is he too a
devil.

Northern Artist. What I catch, is at present only sketch-
ways as it were; but I prepare myself betimes for the Italian
journey.

Purist. Ah I my ill-fortune brings me hither; what a
constant scene of rioting I and of the whole host of witches,
only two are powdered.

Young Witch. Powder as well as petticoats are for
little old and grey women. Therefore I sit naked upon my
he-goat, and show a stout body.

Matron. We have too much good-breeding to squabble
with you here. But I hope you wilt rot, young and delicate
as you are.

Leader of the Band. Flies' snouts and gnats' noses,
don't swarm so about the naked. Frog in leaves, and
cricket in the grass ! Continue, however, to keep time, I
beg of you.

134

INTERMEZZO

Weathercock {towards one side). Company to one's
heart's content ! Truly, nothing but brides ! and young
bachelors, man for man ! the hopefuUest people !

Weathercock {towards the other side). And if the ground
does not open, to swallow up all of them — with a quick run,
I will immediately jump into hell.

Xenien. We are here as insects, with little sharp nebs, to
honour Satan, our worshipful papa, according to his dignity.

Hennings. See! how naively they joke together in a
crowded troop. They will e'en say in the end, that they
had good hearts.

Musaget. I like full well to lose myself in this host of
witches; for, truly, I should know how to manage these
better than Muses.

Ci-devant Genius of the Age. With proper people, one
becomes somebody. Come, take hold of my skirt! The
Blocksberg, like the German Parnassus, has a very broad top.

Inquisitive Traveller. Tell me what is the name of
that stiff man. He walks with stiff steps. He snuffles
everything he can snuffle. "He is scenting out Jesuits."

The Crane. I like to fish in clear and even in troubled
waters. On the same principle you see the pious gentlemen
associate even with devils.

Worldling. Aye, for the pious, believe me, everything
is a vehicle. They actually form many a conventicle, here
upon the Blocksberg.

Dancer. Here is surely a new choir coming! I hear
distant drums. But don't disturb yourselves! there are
single-toned bitterns among the reeds.

Dancing Master'^ How each throws up his legs! gets
on as best he may! The crooked jumps, the clumsy hops,
and asks not how it looks.

* This and the following stanza were added in the last complete Edition of Goethe*s
Works.

135 K 2

FAUST

Fiddler. How deeply this pack of ragamuffins hal
each other, and how gladly they would give each other th
finishing blow ! The bagpipe unites them here, as Orpheui
lyre the beasts.

Dogmatist. I will not be put out of my opinion, nc
by either critics or doubts. The devil, though, must b
something ; for how else could there be devils ?

Idealist. Phantasy, this once, is really too masterft
in my mind. Truly, if I be that All, I must be besid'
myself to>day.

Realist. Entity is a regular plague to me, and canno
but vex me much. I stand here, for the first time, no
firm upon my feet.

Supematuralist. I am greatly pleased at being here
and am delighted with these ; for, from devils, I can certainly
draw conclusions as to good spirits.

Sceptic. They follow the track of the flame, and beUevi
themselves near the treasure. Only doubt (zwetfel) rhymes
to devil (teu/el). Here I am quite at home.

Leader of the Band. Frog in the leaves, and crickei
in the grass I Confounded dilettanti ! Flies' snouts an<
gnats' noses; you are fine musicians I

The Knowing Ones. Sansottci, that is the name of th<
host of merry creatures. There is no longer any walking
upon feet, wherefore we walk upon our heads.

The Maladroit Ones. In times past we have sponge<j
many a tit-bit ; but now, good bye to all that ! Our shoes
are danced through ; we run on bare soles.

WiU-o'the-Wisps. We come from the bog, from which
we are just sprung; but we are the glittering gallants here
in the dance directly.

Star-Shoot. From on high, in star-and-fire-light, I shot
hither. I am now lying crooked-ways in the grass ; who
will help me upon my legs ?

136

< '

INTERMEZZO

The Massive Ones. Room ! room ! and round about !
so down go the grass-stalks. Spirits are coming, but spirits
as they are, they have plump limbs.

Puck. Don't tread so heavily, like elephants' calves ;
and the plumpest on this day be the stout Puck himself.

Ariel. If kind nature gave — if the spirit gave you
wings, follow my light track up to the hill of roses !

Orchestra {pianissimo). Drifting clouds, and wreathed
mists, brighten from on high ! Breeze in the leaves, and
wind in the rushes, and all is dissipated!

A GLOOMY DAY.— OPEN COUNTRY

Faust, — Mephistopheles.

' M I SE RY I Despairing ! Long a
wretched wanderer upon the earth, and
now a prisoner 1 The dear, unhappy
being, cooped up in the dungeon, as a
malefactor, for horrid tortures ! Even
to that ! to that 1 Treacherous, worthless
spirit, and this hast thou concealed
from me ! Stand, only stand I roll thy devilish eyes
infuriated in thy head ! Stand and brave me with
thy unbearable presence! A prisoner! In irremediable
misery 1 Given over to evil spirits, and to sentence-
passing, unfeeling man I And me, in the mean timet
hast thou been lulling with tasteless dissipations,
concealing her growing wretchedness from me, and
leaving her to perish without help.
Mephistopheles. She is not the first.
Faust. Dog I horrible monster I — Turn him, thou
Infinite Spirit ! turn the reptile back again into his dog's
shape, in which he was often pleased to trot before me by
night, to roll before the feet of the harmless wanderer,
and fasten on his shoulders when he felt. Turn him again
into his favourite shape, that he may crouch on his belly
before me in the sand, whilst I spurn him with my foot,
138

OPEN COUNTRY

the reprobate ! Not the first ! Wo ! wo! It is inconceivable by
any human soul, that more than one creature should have sunk
into such a depth of misery, — that the first, in its writhing-
death-agony, was not sufficient to atone for the guilt of all
the rest in the sight of the Ever-pardoning. It harrows
up my marrow and my very life, — the misery of this one :
thou art grinning away calmly at the fate of thousands.

Mephistopheles. Now are we already at our wits* end
again ! just where the sense of your mortals snaps with
overstraining. Why dost thou enter into fellowship with us,
if thou canst not go through with it.^ Will'st fly, and art
not safe from dizziness ? Did we force ourselves on thee,
or thou thyself on us ?

Faust. Gnash not thy greedy teeth thus defyingly at
me ! I loathe thee ! Great, glorious Spirit, thou who
deignedst to appear to me, thou who knowest my heart and
my soul, why yoke me to this shame-fellow who feeds on
mischief, and battens on destruction !

Mephistopheles. Hast done }

Faust. Save her ! or woe to thee ! The most horrible
curse on thee for thousands of years !

Mephistopheles. I cannot loosen the shackles of the
avenger, nor undo his bolts. — Save her! — Who was it that
plunged her into ruin ? I or thou ?

[Paust looks wildly around.

Art thou grasping after the thunder ? Well, that it is not
given to you wretched mortals ! To dash to pieces one who
replies to you in all innocence — that is just the tyrant's
way of venting himself in perplexities.

Faust. Bring me thither ! She shall be free !

Mephistopheles. And the danger to which you expose
yourself } Know, the guilt of blood, from your hand, still
lies upon the town. Avenging spirits hover over the place
of the slain, and lie in wait for the returning murderer.

139

FAUST

Faust. That, too, from thee ? Murder and death of a
world upon thee, monster ! Conduct me thither, I say, and
free her I

Mephistopheles. I will conduct thee, and what I can,
hear ! Have I all power in heaven and upon earth ? I will
cloud the gaoler's senses ; do you possess yourself of the
keys, and bear her off with human hand. I will watch I
The magic horses will be ready, I will bear you off. This
much 1 can do.

Faust. Up and away !

. ■ . 1 ?

•. I

"^ ' .

.nommoJ 9c\) no 2.s\oc\c\ottidc\9W buD tuiD*^

NIGHT— A COMMON

Faust and Mbphestophelbs rushing along upon black horses.
Faust.

are they working — those about
the Ravenstone yonder ?
Mephistoplieles. Can't tell what they're
cooking and making.

Faust. Are waving upwards — waving
downwards— bending — stooping.
Mephistopheles. A witch company.
Faust. They are sprinkling and charming.
Mephistopheles. On I on I

DUNGEON

Faust (with a bunch of keys and a lamp, hefort an in
tpicke^).

TREMOR, long unfelt, seizes me;
the concentrated misery of man-
^ //«Hfc«'fa '*'"*^ fastens on me. Here, behind these
damp walls, ts her dwelling-place, and
her crime was a good delusion I Thou
hesitatest to go to her I Thou fearest
to see her again I On I thy irresolution lingers death
hitherwards. [He takes hold of Ute lock.— Singing within.

My mother, the whore,
That killed me!
My father, the rogue.
That ate me up \
My little sister
Picked up the bones
At a cool place !
There I became a beautiful little wood-bird.
Fly away I fly away I
Faust {opening the lock). She has no presentiment that
her lover is listening, hears the chains clank, the straw rustle.

\Ht enters.

Margaret {hiding her face in tlie bed of straw). Woe I
woe ! They come. Bitter death !

Faust (softly). Hush I hush I 1 come to free thee.
14a

DUNGEON

Margaret {throwing herself before him). If thou art
human, feel for my wretchedness.

Faust. You will wake the guard by your cries !

[He takes hold of the chains to unlock them.

Margaret {on her knees). Who has given you, headsman,
this power over me? You come for me whilst it is yet
midnight. Be merciful and let me live. Is not to-morrow
morning soon enough ? [She stands up.

I am yet so young, so young! and am to die already 1 I
was fair, too, and that was my undoing! My true-love was
near — he is now far away. Torn lies my garland, scattered
the flowers. Don't take hold of me so roughly ! Spare
me ! What have I done to you ? Let me not implore
in vain ! I never saw you before in all my life, you
know !

Faust. Can I endure this misery!

Margaret. I am now entirely in thy power. Only let
me first give suck to the child. I pressed it this whole
night to my heart. They took it away to vex me, and now
say I killed it. And I shall never be happy again. They
sing songs upon me! It is wicked of the people. An old
tale ends so, — who bids them apply it?

Faust {throws himself on the ground). A lover lies at
thy feet, to unloose the bonds of wretchedness.

Margaret {throws herself by his side). Ay, let us kneel
to invoke the saints. See, under these steps, under the
threshold, hell is seething 1 The Evil One, with fearful fury,
is making a din.

Faust {passionately). Margaret! Margaret!

Margaret {listening). That was my true-love's voice.
{She springs up. The chains fall off). Where is he? I
heard him call. I am free ! Nobody shall hinder me. I will
fly to his neck! lie on his bosom! He called Margaret!
He stood upon the threshold. In the midst, through the

143

FAUST

howling and clattering of hell, through the grim, devilish
scoffing, I knew the sweet, the loving tone again.

Faust Tis I.

Margaret. Tis thou ! Ah, say so once again ! {Clasping
him) Tis he! Tis he! Whither is all my wretchedness?
Whither the agony of the dungeon ? — the chains ? Tis thou !
Thou com'st to save me. I am saved!— There again already
is the street, where I saw thee for the first time; and the
cheerful garden, where I and Martha waited for thee.

Faust {striving to take her away). Come ! Come with me!

Margaret. Oh stay! I like to stay where thou stayest.

[Caressing him.

Faust Haste! If you do not make haste, we shall
pay dearly for it.

Margaret What ! you can no longer kiss ? So short
time away from me, my love, and already forgotton how to
kiss ! Why do I feel so sad upon your neck ? when, in
other times, a whole heaven came over me from your words,
your looks ; and you kissed me as if you were going to
smother me! Kiss me! or I will kiss you! {She embraces
him) O woe! your lips are cold, — are dumb. Where have
you left your love ? who has robbed me of it ?

[She turns from him,

Faust. Come ! follow me ! take courage, my love. I
will press thee to my heart with thousandfold warmth — only
follow me ! I ask thee but this.

Margaret {turning to him). And is it thou, then } And
is it thou, indeed ^

Faust. Tis I. Come along !

Margaret. You undo my fetters, you take me to your
bosom again ! How comes it that you are not afraid of
me ? And do you then know, my love, whom you are freeing ^

Faust Come, come! the depth of night is already
passing away.

144

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■•.•■:; .1 ■.'• . ....ifi

-« ■ \ -I

I /^

..Mv. !.. '.\ o -1 il

• ♦ "^ ■ I : -in
■ ■ \ .■ ■ \

I •

I !■

1 .

DUNGEON

Margaret I have killed my mother, I have drowned my
child. Was it not bestowed on thee and me ? — on thee,
too ? Tis thou 1 I scarcely believe it. Give me thy hand.
It is no dream — thy dear hand! — but oh, 'tis damp! Wipe
it off. It seems to me as if there was blood on it. Oh,
God 1 what hast thou done ^ Put up thy sword ! I pray
thee, do!

Faust. Let what is past, be past. Thou wilt kill me.

Margaret No, you must remain behind. I will describe
the graves to you ! you must see to them the first thing
to-morrow. Give my mother the best place; — my brother
close by ; — me, a little on one side, only not too far off I
And the little one on my right breast; no one else will lie
by me. To nestle to thy side, — that was a sweet, a dear
delight! But it will never be mine again. I feel as if I
were irresistibly drawn to you, and you were thrusting me
off. And yet, 'tis you ; and you look, so kind.

Faust. If you feel that 'tis I, come along.

Margaret Out there ?

Faust Into the free air!

Margaret If the grave is without, if death lies in
wait, — then come ! Hence into the eternal resting-place,
and not a step further. Thou art now going away.? O
Henry, could I but go too !

Faust. Thou canst ! Only consent 1 The door stands
open.

Margaret I dare not go out ; there is no hope for me I
What avails it flying ? They are lying in wait for me. It
is so miserable to be obliged to beg, — and with an evil
conscience, too. It is so miserable to wander in a strange
land, — and they will catch me, do as I will.

Faust. I shall be with thee.

Margaret Quick, quick ! Save thy poor child. Away !
Keep the path up by the brook — over the bridge — into the

FAUST

wood — to the left where the plank is — in the pond. Only
quick and catch hold of it ! it tries to rise ! it is still
struggling ! Help ! help 1

Faust. Be calm, I pray I Only one step, and thou art
free.

Margaret Were we but past the hill ! There sits my
mother on a stone — my brain grows chill! — ^there sits my
mother on a stone, and waves her head to and fro. She
beckons not, she nods not, her head is heavy; she slept so
long, she'll wake no more. She slept that we might enjoy
ourselves. Those were pleasant times !

Faust. As no prayer, no persuasion, is here of any
avail, I will risk the bearing thee away.

Margaret. Let me go 1 No, I endure no violence 1
Lay not hold of me so murderously ! Time was, you know,
when I did all to pleasure you.

Faust. The day is dawning ! My love ! my love 1

Margaret. Day ! Yes, is growing day ! The last day
is breaking in ! My wedding-day it was to be 1 Tell no
one that thou hadst been with Margaret already. Woe to
my garland ! It is all over now ! We shall meet again,
but not at the dance. The crowd thickens; it is not heard.
The square, the streets, cannot hold them. The bell tolls 1 —
the stafF breaks ! How they bind and seize me ! Already
am I hurried off to the blood-seat! Already quivering for
every neck is the sharp steel which quivers for mine. Dumb
lies the world as the grave!

Faust. Oh that I had never been born !

Mephistopheles {appears without). Up! or you are lost.
Vain hesitation ! Lingering and prattling ! My horses
shudder; the morning is gloaming up.

Margaret. What rises up from the floor .? He ! He !
Send him away I What would he at the holy place } He
would me !

146

•is\9<\qo1?.u\qsl^ ^V\^ ^*xD^q€lD^^b kuiD^

DUNGEON

Faust. Thou shalt live!

Margaret. Judgment of God ! I have given myself up
to thee.

Mephistopheles (to Faust). Come ! come ! I will leave
you in the scrape with her.

Margaret. Thine am I, Father ! Save me, ye Angels !
Ye Holy Hosts, range yourselves round about, to guard me !
Henry! I tremble to look upon thee.

Mephistopheles. She is judged !

Voice from above. Is saved !

Mephistopheles {to Faust). Hither to me !

[Disappears with Paust.

Voice from within^ dying away. Henry ! Henry !

APPENDIX

SCENES FROM THE FAUST OF GOETHE

Translated by Percy Bysshb Shelley.

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN.

The Lord and the Host of Heaven. Enter three Archangels.

Raphael, Gabriel, Michael.

Raphael. The sun makes music as of old

Amid the rival spheres of Heaven
On its predestined circle roird

With thunder speed : the Angels even
Draw strength from gazing on its glance,

Though none its meaning fathom may : —
The world's unwither*d countenance

Is bright as at creation's day.

Gab. And swift and swift, with rapid lightness.

The adorned Earth spins silently.
Alternating Elysian brightness

With deep and dreadful night ; the sea
Foams in broad billows from the deep

Up to the rocks, and rocks and ocean,
Onward, with spheres which never sleep.

Are hurried in eternal motion.

Mic. And tempests in contention roar

From land to sea, from sea to land ;
And, raging, weave a chain of power.

Which girds the earth, as with a band. —
A flashing desolation there.

Flames before the thunder's way ;
But thy servants, Lord, revere

The gentle changes of thy day.

151 1-2

APPENDIX

Chorus of the Three. The Angels draw strength from

thy glance.
Though no one comprehend thee may ; —
Thy world's unwither'd countenance
Is bright as on creation's day.*

Enter Mbphistophblbs.

Meph. As thou, O Lord, once more art kind enough
To interest thyself in our afibirs —
And ask, *' How goes it with you there below ? "

"^ Rap. The sun sounds, according to ancient custom.
In the song of emulation of his brother-spheres.
And its fore-written circle
Fulfils with a step of thunder.
Its countenance gives the Angels strength
Though no one can fathom it.
The incredible high works
Are excellent as at the first day.

Gab. And swift, and inconceivably swift
The adornment of earth winds itself round.
And exchanges Paradise-clearness
With deep dreadful night.
The sea foams in broad waves
Prom its deep bottom, up to the rocks.
And rocks and sea are torn on together
In the eternal swift course of the spheres.

Mic, And storms roar in emulation
Prom sea to land, from land to sea,
And make, raging, a chain
Of deepest operation round about.
There flames a flashing destruction
Before the path of the thunderbolt.
But thy servants. Lord, revere
The gentle alternations of thy day.

Cho. Thy countenance gives the Angels strength.
Though none can comprehend thee ;
And all thy lofty works
Are excellent as at the first day.

Such is the literal translation of this astonishing chorus ; it is impossible
to represent in another language the melody of the versification ; even the
volatile strength and delicacy of the ideas escape in the crucible of transla-
tion, and the reader is surprised to find a caput mortuum. — Translator's Note,

152

SHELLEY'S TRANSLATIONS

And as indulgently at other times

Thou tookedst not my visits in ill part.

Thou seest me here once more among thy household.

Though I should scandalize this company.

You will excuse me if I do not talk

In the high style which they think fashionable ;

My pathos would certainly make you laugh too.

Had you not long since given over laughing.

Nothing know I to say of suns and worlds ;

I observe only how men plague themselves ; —

The little god o* the world keeps the same stamp,

As wonderful as on creation's day : —

A little better would he live, hadst thou

Not given him a glimpse of heaven's light,

Which he calls reason, and employs it only

To live more beastlily than any beast.

With reverence to your Lordship be it spoken,

He's like one of those long-legg'd grasshoppers,

Who flits and jumps about, and sings for ever

The same old song i' the grass. There let him lie,

Burying his nose in every heap of dung.

The Lord, Have you no more to say. Do you
come here
Always to scold, and cavil, and complain ?
Seems nothing ever right to you on earth ?

Meph. No, Lord I I find all there, as ever, bad at best.
Even I am sorry for man's days of sorrow ;
I could myself almost give up the pleasure
Of plaguing the poor things.

The Lord. Knowest thou Faust ?

Meph. The Doctor ?

The Lord. Ay ; my servant Faust.

Meph. In truth

He serves you in a fashion quite his own ;
And the fool's meat and drink are not of earth.
His aspirations bear him on so far
That he is half aware of his own folly.
For he demands from Heaven its fairest star,

153

APPENDIX

And from the earth the highest joy it bears,
Yet all things far, and all things near, are vain
To calm the deep emotions of his breast.

The Lord. Though he now serves me in a cloud of error,
I will soon lead him forth to the clear day.
When trees look green full well the gardener knows
That fruits and blooms will deck the coming year.

Meph. What will you bet ? — now I am sure of winning —
Only, observe you give me full permission
To lead him softly on my path.

The Lord. As long

As he shall live upon the earth, so long
Is nothing unto thee forbidden — Man
Must err till he has ceased to struggle.

Meph. Thanks.

And that is all I ask ; for willingly
I never make acquaintance with the dead.
The full fresh cheeks of youth are food for me.
And if a corpse knocks, I am not at home.
For I am like a cat — I like to play
A little with the mouse before I eat it.

The Lord. Well, well ! it is permitted thee. Draw thou
His spirit from its springs ; as thou find*st power.
Seize him and lead him on thy downward path ;
And stand ashamed when failure teaches thee
That a good man, even in his darkest longings.
Is well aware of the right way.

Meph. Well and good.

I am not in much doubt about my bet,
And if I lose, then 'tis your turn to crow ;
Enjoy your triumph then with a full breast.
Ay ; dust shall he devour, and that with pleasure,
Like my old paramour, the famous Snake.

The Lord. Pray come here when it suits you ; for
I never
Had much dislike for people of your sort.
And, among all the Spirits who rebell'd,
The knave was ever the least tedious to me.

154

SHELLEY'S TRANSLATIONS

The active spirit of man soon sleeps, and soon
He seeks unbroken quiet ; therefore I
Have given him the Devil for a companion,
Who may provoke him to some sort of work,
And must create for ever. — But ye, pure
Children of God, enjoy eternal beauty ; —
Let that which ever operates and lives
Clasp you within the limits of its love ;
And seize with sweet and melancholy thoughts
The floating phantoms of its loveliness.

[Heaven closes ; the Archangels exeunt.

Meph. From time to time I visit the Old Fellow,
And I take care to keep on good terms with him.
Civil enough is this same God Almighty,
To talk so freely with the Devil himself.

MAY-DAY NIGHT.
Scene — The Hartz Mountain, a desolate Country,

Faust, Mbphistophblbs.

Meph. Would you not like a broomstick ? As for me
I wish I had a good stout ram to ride ;
For we are still far from th' appointed place.

Faust. This knotted stafF is help enough for me.
Whilst I feel fresh upon my legs. What good
Is there in making short a pleasant way ?
To creep along the labyrinths of the vales.
And climb those rocks, where ever-babbling springs
Precipitate themselves in waterfalls.
Is the true sport that seasons such a path.
Already Spring kindles the birchen spray.
And the hoar pines already feel her breath :
Shall she not work also within our limbs ?

155

APPENDIX

Meph. Nothing of such an influence do I feel.
My body is all wintry, and I wish
The flowers upon our path were frost and snow.
But see, how melancholy rises now,
Dimly uplifting her belated beam,
The blank unwelcome round of the red moon.
And gives so bad a light, that every step
One stumbles 'gainst some crag. With your permission,
ril call an Ignis-fatuus to our aid :
I see one yonder burning jollily.
Halloo, my friend I may I request that you
Would favour us with your bright company ?
Why should you blaze away there to no purpose ?
Pray be so good as light us up this way.

IgniS'Fatutis. With reverence be it spoken, I will try
To overcome the lightness of my nature ;
Our course, you know, is generally zig-zag.

Meph. Ha, ha I your worship thinks you have to deal
With men. Go straight on, in the Devil's name.
Or I shall pufF your flickering life out.

Ig.'Fat. Well,

I see you are the master of the house ;
I will accommodate myself to you.
Only consider, that to-night this mountain
Is all enchanted, and if Jack-a-lantern
Shows you his way, though you should miss your own.
You ought not to be too exact with him.

Faust, Mephistophelbs, and Ignis-Fatuus,

in alternate Chorus.

The limits of the sphere of dream,

The bounds of true and false, are past.

Lead us on, thou wandering gleam.
Lead us onward, far and fast.
To the wide, the desert waste.

But see, how swift advance and shift,
Trees behind trees, row by row, —

156

SHELLEY'S TRANSLATIONS

How, clift by clift, rocks bend and lift
Their frowning foreheads as we go.
The giant-snouted crags, ho I ho I
How they snort, and how they blow !

Through the mossy sods and stones,
Stream and streamlet hurry down
A rushing throng ! A sound of song
Beneath the vault of Heaven is blown I
Sweet notes of love, the speaking tones
Of this bright day, sent down to say
That Paradise on Earth is known,
Resound around, beneath, above.
All we hope and all we love
Finds a voice in this blithe strain.
Which wakens hill and wood and rill,
And vibrates far o*er field and vale.
And which Echo, like the tale
Of old times, repeats again.

To whoo ! to whoo ! near, nearer now

The sound of song, the rushing throng !

Are the screech, the lapwing, and the jay.

All awake as if 'twere day ?

See, with long legs and belly wide,

A salamander in the brake I

Every root is like a snake.

And along the loose hill-side.

With strange contortions through the night.

Curls, to seize or to affright ;

And, animated, strong, and many,

They dart forth polypus-antennse.

To blister with their poison spume

The wanderer. Through the dazzling gloom

The many-colour*d mice, that thread

The dewy turf beneath our tread,

In troops each other's motions cross,

Through the heath and through the moss ;

And, in legions intertangled,

157

APPENDIX

The fire-flies flit, and swarm, and throng,
Till all the mountain depths are spangled.

Tell me, shall we go or stay ?
Shall we onward ? Come along I
Everything around is swept
Forward, onward, far away !
Trees and masses intercept
The sight, and wisps on every side
Are pufFed up and multiplied.

Meph. Now vigorously seize my skirt, and gain
This pinnacle of isolated crag.
One may observe with wonder from this point.
How Mammon glows among the mountains.

Faust. Ay —

And strangely through the solid depth below
A melancholy light, like the red dawn,
Shoots from the lowest gorge of the abyss
Of mountains, lightning hitherward : there rise
Pillars of smoke, here clouds float gently by ;
Here the light burns soft as the enkindled air.
Or the illumined dust of golden flowers;
And now it glides like tender colours spreading ;
And now bursts forth in fountains from the earth ;
And now it winds, one torrent of broad light.
Through the far valley with a hundred veins ;
And now once more within that narrow corner
Masses itself into intensest splendour.
And near us, see, sparks spring out of the ground.
Like golden sand scattered upon the darkness ;
The pinnacles of that black wall of mountains
That hems us in, are kindled.

Meph, Rare, in faith !

Does not Sir Mammon gloriously illuminate
His palace for this festival — it is
A pleasure which you had not known before.
I spy the boisterous guests already.

158

SHELLEY'S TRANSLATIONS

Faust. How

The children of the wind rage in the air I
With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck !
Meph. Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag.
Beware ! for if with them thou warrest
In their fierce flight towards the wilderness,
Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag
Thy body to a grave in the abyss.

A cloud thickens the night.
Hark ! how the tempest crashes through the forest I

The owls fly out in strange affright ;
The columns of the evergreen palaces
Are split and shatter'd ;
The roots creak, and stretch, and groan ;
And ruinously overthrown.
The trunks are crush'd and shatter'd
By the fierce blast's unconquerable stre3s.
Over each other crack and crash they all
In terrible and intertangled fall ;
And through the ruins of the shaken mountain

The airs hiss and howl —
It is not the voice of the fountain.
Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.
Dost thou not hear ?

Strange accents are ringing
Aloft, afar, anear ;

The witches are singing I
The torrent of a raging wizard song
Streams the whole mountain along.
Chorus of Witches. The stubble is yellow, the corn is
green,
Now to the Brocken the witches go ;
The mighty multitude here may be seen
Gathering, wizard and witch, below.
Sir Urean is sitting aloft in the air;
Hey over stock ! and hey over stone !
'Twixt witches and incubi, what shall be done ?
Tell it who dare I tell it who dare !

159

APPENDIX

A Voice. Upon a sow-swine, whose feurows were
nine,
Old Baubo rideth alone.

Chorus. Honour her, to whom honour is due,
Old mother Baubo, honour to you I
An able sow, with old Baubo upon her.
Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honour !
The legion of witches is coming behind,
Darkening the night, and outspeeding the wind —

A Voice, Which way comest thou I

A Voice, Over Ilsenstein ;

The owl was awake in the white moonshine ;
I saw her at rest in her downy nest.
And she stared at me with her broad, bright eye.

Voices, And you may now as well, take your course on
to Hell,
Since you ride by so fast, on the headlong blast.

A Voice, She dropt poison upon as I past.
Here are the wounds —

Chorus of Witches. Come away I come along !
The way is wide, the way is long.
But what is that for a Bedlam throng ?
Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom.
The child in the cradle lies strangled at home,
And the mother is clapping her hands. —

Semichorus of Witches I, We glide in

Like snails when the women are all away ;
And from a house once given over to sin
Woman has a thousand steps to stray.

Semichorus II, A thousand steps must a woman
take.
Where a man but a single spring will make.

Voices Above. Come with us, come with us, from
Felunsee.

Voices Below. With what joy would we fly, through
the upper sky !
We are wash'd, we are *nointed, stark naked are we ;
But our toil and our pain is for ever in vain.

i6o

SHELLEY'S TRANSLATIONS

Both Choruses. The wind is still, the stars are fled,
The melancholy moon is dead ;
The magic notes, like spark on spark.
Drizzle, whistling through the dark.
Come away !

Voices Below. Stay, oh, stay I

Voices Above. Out of the crannies of the rocks.
Who calls ?

Voices Below. Oh, let me join your flocks I
I, three hundred years have striven
To catch your skirt and mount to Heaven, —
And still in vain. Oh, might I be
With company akin to me !

Both Choruses. Some on a ram and some on a
prong,
On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along ;
Forlorn is the wight who can rise not to-night.

A Half 'Witch Below. I have been tripping this
many an hour :
Are the others already so far before ?
No quiet at home, and no peace abroad I
And less methinks is found by the road.

Chorus of Witches. Come onward away I aroint
thee, aroint I
A witch to be strong must anoint — anoint —
Then every trough will be boat enough ;
With a rag for a sail we can sweep through the sky,
Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly ?

Both Choruses. We cling to the skirt, and we strike
on the ground ;
Witch-legions thicken around and around ;
Wizard-swarms cover the heath all over.

[They descend.

Meph. What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling ;
What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling ;
What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning.
As Heaven and Earth were overturning.
There is a true witch element about us,

i6i

APPENDIX

Take hold on me, or we shall be divided ; —
Where are you ?

^aust (from a distance). Here I

Ueph. What I

I must exert my authority in the house.
Place for young Voland I pray make way, good people.
Take hold on me, doctor, and with one step
Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd :
They are too mad for people of my sort.
Just there shines a peculiar kind of light —
Something attracts me in those bushes. Come
This way : we shall slip down there in a minute.

Fatist Spirit of Contradiction I Well, lead on —
'Twere a wise feat indeed to wander out
Into the Brocken upon May-day night.
And then to isolate oneself in scorn.
Disgusted with the humours of the time.

Meph. See yonder, round a many-colour'd flame
A merry club is huddled altogether :
Even with such little people as sit there
One would not be alone.

Faust. Would that I were

Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke,
Where the blind million rush impetuously
To meet the evil ones ; there might I solve
Many a riddle that torments me I

Meph. Yet

Many a riddle there is tied anew
Inextricably. Let the great world rage I
We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings.
Tis an old custom. Men have ever built
Their own small world in the great world of all.
I see young witches naked there, and old ones
Wisely attired with greater decency.
Be guided now by me, and you shall buy
A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble.
I hear them tune their instruments — one must
Get used to this damn'd scraping. Come, Til lead you

162

SHELLEY'S TRANSLATIONS

Among them ; and what there you do and see,
As a fresh compact 'twixt us two shall be.
How say you now ? this space is wide enough —
Look forth, you cannot see the end of it —
An hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they
Who throng around them seem innumerable :
Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love.
And cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend.
What is there better in the world than this ?

Faust. In introducing us, do you assume
The character of wizard or of devil ?

Meph. In truth, I generally go about
In strict incognito ; and yet one likes
To wear one's orders upon gala days.
I have no ribbon at my knee ; but here
At home, the cloven foot is honourable.
See you that snail there ? — she comes creeping up.
And with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something
I could not, if I would, mask myself here.
Come now, we'll go about from fire to fire :
I'll be the pimp, and you shall be the lover.

[To some Old Women, who are sitting round a
heap of glimmering coals.
Old gentlewomen, what do you do out here ?
You ought to be with the young rioters
Right in the thickest of the revelry —
But every one is best content at home.

General. Who dare confide in right or a just claim ?
So much as I had done for them I and now —
With women and the people 'tis the same,

Youth will stand foremost ever, — age may go
To the dark grave unhonour'd.

Minister. Nowadays

People assert their rights : they go too for ;

But as for me, the good old times I praise ;
Then we were all in all, 'twas something worth
One's while to be in place and wear a star ;
That was indeed the golden age on earth.

163

APPENDIX

Parvenu* We too are active, and we did and do
What we ought not, perhaps ; and yet we now
Will seize, whilst all things are whirl'd round and

round,
A spoke of Fortune's wheel, and keep our ground.

Author, Who now can taste a treatise of deep sense
And ponderous volume ? 'tis impertinence
To write what none will read, therefore will I
To please the young and thoughtless people try.

Meph, {Who at once appears to have grown very old).
I find the people ripe for the last day.
Since I last came up to the wizard mountain ;
And as my little cask runs turbid now.
So is the world drain'd to the dregs.

Pedlar-Witch. Look here.

Gentlemen ; do not hurry on so fast
And lose the chance of a good pennyworth.
I have a pack full of the choicest wares
Of every sort, and yet in all my bundle
Is nothing like what may be found on earth ;
Nothing that in a moment will make rich
Men and the world with Rne malicious mischief —
There is no dagger drunk with blood ; no bowl
From which consuming poison may be drain'd
By innocent and healthy lips ; no jewel.
The price of an abandon'd maiden's shame ;
No sword which cuts the bond it cannot loose,
Or stabs the wearer's enemy in the back ;
No—

Meph. Gossip, you know little of these times.
What has been, has been ; what is done, is past.
They shape themselves into the innovations
They breed, and innovation drags us with it.
The torrent of the crowd sweeps over us.
You think to impel, and are yourself impell'd.

Faust. Who is that yonder ?

• A sort of fundholder.
164

SHELLEY'S TRANSLATIONS

Meph. Mark her well. It is

Lilith.

Faust. Who ?

Meph. Lilithy the Rrst wife of Adam.

Beware of her fair hair, for she excels
All women in the magic of her locks ;
And when she winds them round a young man's neck,
She will not ever set him free again.

Faust, There sit a girl and an old woman — they
Seem to be tired with pleasure and with play.

Meph, There is no rest to-night for any one :
When one dance ends another is begun ;
Come, let us to it ; We shall have rare fun.

\_Faust dances and sings with a Girl, and
Mephistopheles with an Old Woman,

BroctO'Phantasmist. What is this cursed multitude
about ?
Have we not long since proved to demonstration
That ghosts move not on ordinary feet ?
But these are dancing just like men and women.

The Girl, What does he want then at our ball ?

Faust. Oh I he

Is far above us all in his conceit :
Whilst we enjoy, he reasons of enjoyment ;
And any step which in our dance we tread,
If it be left out of his reckoning,
Is not to be consider*d as a step.
There are few things that scandalize him not :
And when you whirl round in the circle now.
As he went round the wheel in his old mill.
He says that you go wrong in all respects.
Especially if you congratulate him
Upon the strength of the resemblance.

BroctO'Phant. Fly I

Vanish I Unheard of impudence I What, still there
In this enlighten'd age too, since you have been

165 M

APPENDIX

Proved not to exist I — But this infernal brood

Will hear no reason and endure no rule.

Are we so wise, and is the pond still haunted ?

How long have I been sweeping out this rubbish

Of superstition, and the world will not

Come clean with all my pains I — it is a case

Unheard of I

The Girl. Then leave oflF teasing us so.

BroctO'Phant. I tell you, spirits, to your feces now,
That I should not regret this despotism
Of spirits, but that mine can wield it not.
To-night I shall make poor work of it.
Yet I will take a round with you, and hope
Before my last step in the living dance
To beat the poet and the devil together.

Meph. At last he will sit down in some foul puddle ;
That is his way of solacing himself;
Until some leech, diverted with his gravity.
Cures him of spirits and the spirit together.

[To Faust, who has seceded from the dance.
Why do you let that fair girl pass from you.
Who sung so sweetly to you in the dance ?

Faust. A red mouse in the middle of her singing
Sprang from her mouth.

Meph, That was all right, my friend,

Be it enough that the mouse was not grey.
Do not disturb your hour of happiness
With close consideration of such trifles.

Faust, Then saw I

Meph. What ?

Faust. Seest thou not a pale.

Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away ?
She drags herself now forward with slow steps.
And seems as if she moved with shackled feet :
I cannot overcome the thought that she
Is like poor Margaret.

Meph, Let it be — pass on —

No good can come of it — it is not well

i66

SHELLEY'S TRANSLATIONS

To meet it — it is an enchanted phantom,
A lifeless idol ; with its numbing look.
It freezes up the blood of man ; and they
Who meet its ghastly stare are turn'd to stone*
Like those who saw Medusa.

Faust. Oh, too true I

Her eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse
Which no beloved hand has closed, alas I
That is the heart which Margaret yielded to me —
Those are the lovely limbs which I enjoy'd I

Meph, It is all magic, poor deluded fool ;
She looks to every one like his Rrst love.

Faust. Oh, what delight I what woe I I cannot turn
My looks from her sweet piteous countenance.
How strangely does a single blood-red line,
Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife,
Adorn her lovely neck I

Meph. Ay, she can carry

Her head under her arm upon occasion ;
Perseus has cut it oflF for her. These pleasures
End in delusion. — Gain this rising ground.
It is as airy here as in a [ ]

And if I am not mightily deceived,
I see a theatre — What may this mean ?

Attendant. Quite a new piece, the last of seven,
for 'tis
The custom now to represent that number.
Tis written by a Dilettante, and
The actors who perform are Dilettanti ;
Excuse me, gentlemen ; but I must vanish,
I am a Dilettante curtain-lifter.

M 3

NOTES

1 1

I •

■ I I

:i: 'i

■I

I".

, I

■II

■i.l!

1 1'!

NOTES

Page 3. They hear not the following lays — the souls to whom I
sang my first, — To understand the Dedication, it is necessary to refer
to the history of the book. See Preface, p. xiv.

P. 5. Prologue for the Theatre. — It must be borne in mind that
the theatre is one of those temporary theatres or booths which are
common at fairs, and that the company is supposed to be an itinerant
one.

P. 9. That, old gentlemen, is your duty. It was a favourite theory
of Goethe, that the power of calling up the most vivid emotions was in
no respect impaired by age, whilst the power of pourtraying them was
greatly improved by experience.

P. 9. Use the greater and the lesser light of heaven. — " And God
made two great lights ; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser
light to rule the night; he made the stars also." — Gen. i. 17.

P. 11. Prologue in Heaven. — The idea of this prologue is taken
from the Book of Job, chapters 1st. and 2nd. '' It is worthy of
remark," says Dr. Schubart, "that in the guise in which the poet
introduces his Mephistopheles, a great diflPerence is to be seen between
his mode of treating the principle of evil, and that followed by
Klopstock, Milton, and Lord Byron in Cain. It has also been a
matter of course, to hold to one side only of the biblical tradition,
which represents Satan as an angel of light fallen through pride and
haughtiness, endeavouring to disturb the glorious creation of the
Supreme Being. Goethe, on the contrary, has adhered rather to
the other side of the tradition, of which the Book of Job is the
groundwork, according to which Satan or the Devil forms one of
the Lord's Host, not as a rebel against his will, but as a powerful
tempter, authorised and appointed as such," &c. — {Vorlesungen).

P. 12. But thy messengers, Lord, respect the mild going of thy
day. — " Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto

171

APPENDIX

them, Here we are ? " — Job. xxxviii. 35. " And of the angels he saith,
Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire." —
St. Paul, Heb. i. 7.

P. 13. A good man in his dark strivings, &c. — Drang in this
passage is untranslatable, though the meaning is clear. In rendering
it as above, I had the striving of jarring impulses (Coleridge's Aids)
in my mind.

P. 13. The scoffer is the least offensive to me. — This does not
convey the character of Mephistopheles, nor is there any English
word that would. The meaning must be: I prefer a malicious,
roguish devil who laughs or scoAb at my works, to one who openly
defles.

P. 14. / like to see the Ancient One occasionally. — Shelley
translates den Alten, the Old Fellow. But the term may allude
merely to "The Ancient of Days,** and is not necessarily a disre-
spectful one. A correspondent proposes The Old Gentleman. I
am also told that der Alte is a slang expression for the father.

In allusion to Mephistopheles liking to see The Lord occasionally.
Dr. Hinrichs observes: — "A fallen angel, as Shakspeare himself says,
is still an angel, who likes to see the Lord occasionally, and avoids
breaking with him, wherefore we And Mephistopheles in heaven
amongst the host.** — p. 37.

P. 15. First Scene. — The opening scene is the only part in which
the Faustus of Marlow bears any similarity to the Faust of Goethe.
I quote it, with the Chorus, in which an outline of the traditional
story is sketched : —

Enter Chorus.

Not marching in the Relds of Tharsimen,
Where Mars did mate the warlike Carthagen ;
Nor sporting in the dalliance of love,
In courts of kings, where state is overturn'd ;
Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds,
Intends our muse to vaunt his heavenly verse ;
Only this, gentles, we must now perform,
The form of Faustus* fortunes, good or bad :
And now to patient judgments we appeal,
And speak for Faustus in his infancy :
Now is he born of parents base of stock,
In Germany, within a town call'd Rhodes;

172

NOTES

At riper years to Wittenburg he went ;

So much he profits in divinity,

That shortly he was graced with Doctor's name,

Excelling all, and sweetly can dispute

In th' heavenly matters of theology ;

Till, swoln with cunning and a self-conceit.

His waxen wings did mount above his reach ;

And melting heavens conspired his overthrow ;

For falling to a devilish exercise,

And glutted now with learning's golden gifts,

He surfeits on the cursed necromancy.

Nothing so sweet as magic is to him,

Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss.

Whereas his kinsman chiefly brought him up.

And this the man that in his study sits.

ACT THE FIRST.— SCENE I.

Faustus in his Study.

Faust. Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin,
To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess ;
Having commenced, be a divine in show,
Yet level at the end of every art.
And live and die in Aristotle's works,
Sweet analytics, 'tis thou hast ravished me.
Bene disserere est fines logicis.
Is, to dispute well, logic's chiefest end ?
Affords this art no greater miracle ?
Then read no more ; thou hast attain'd that end,
A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit :
Bid economy farewell : and Galen come.
Be a physician, Faustus ; heap up gold.
And be eternized for some wondrous cure ;
Summon bonum medicinse sanitas ;
The end of physic is our bodies' health
Why, Faustus, hast thou not attain'd that end ?
Are not thy bills hung up as monuments,
Whereby whole cities have escaped the plague.
And thousand desperate maladies been cured ?
Yet thou art still but Faustus and a man.
Could'st thou make men to live eternally.
Or, being dead, raise them to life again.
Then this profession were to be esteem'd.
Physic, farewell ! Where is Justinian ?
Si una eademque res legatur duobus,

173

APPENDIX

Alter rem, alter valorem rei, &c.
A petty case of paltry legacies.
Exhereditari filium non potest pater nisi, &c.
Such is the subject of the institute,
And universal body of the law.
This study fits a mercenary drudge,
Who aims at nothing but external trash.
Too servile and illiberal for me.
When all is done, divinity is best.

Jerome's Bible, Faustus : view it well.
Stipendium peccati mors est : ha ! stipendium, &c.
The reward of sin is death : that's hard.
Si pecc&sse negamus, fallimur, et nulla est in nobis Veritas :
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and there

is no truth in us.
Why then belike we must sin.
And so consequently die.
Ay, we must die an everlasting death.
What doctrine call you this ? Che sera, sera :
What will be, shall be ; divinity, adieu !
These metaphysics of magicians,
And necromantic books are heavenly !
Lines, circles, letters, characters :
Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.
Oh I what a world of profit and delight.
Of power, of honour, and omnipotence.
Is promised to the studious artisan !
All things that move between the quiet pole.
Shall be at my command. Emperors and kings
Are but obey'd in their several provinces ;
But his dominion that exceeds in this.
Stretches as far as doth the mind of man :
A sound magician is a demigod.

Here tire my brains to get a deity. [Enter Wagner.

— Marlow*s Works, vol. ii.

The commencement of Lord Byron's Manfred is clearly traceable
to Faust, either Marlow*s or Goethe's. His own and Goethe's opinions
on this matter may be collected from the following extracts, which
form part of a note to the last edition of Byron's Works, vol. ii. p. 71.

In June, 1820, Lord Byron thus writes to Mr. Murray: —
" Enclosed is something will interest you ; to wit, the opinion of the
greatest man in Germany, perhaps in Europe, upon one of the great
men of your advertisements (all famous hands, as Jacob Tonson

174

NOTES

used to say of his ragamuffins), in short, a critique of Goethe's upon
Manfred. There is the original, an English translation, and an Italian
one ; — keep them all in your archives, for the opinions of such a man
as Goethe, whether favourable or not, are always interesting, and this
more so, as favourable. His Faust I never read, for I don't know
German; but Matthew Monk Lewis, in 1816, at Coligny, translated
most of it to me xnvd voce, and I was naturally much struck with it ;
but it was the Steinbach, and the Jungfrau, and something else much
more than Faustus, that made me write Manfred. The Rrst scene,
however, and that of Faustus are very similar."

The following is part of the extract from Goethe's Kunst und
Alterthum, which the above letter inclosed: —

** Byron's tragedy, Manfred, was to me a wonderful phenomenon,
and one that closely touched me.* This singularly intellectual poet
has taken my Faustus to himself, and extracted from it the strongest
nourishment for his hypochondriac humour. He has made use of
the impelling principles in his own way, for his own purposes, so
that no one of them remains the same ; and it is particularly on this
account that I cannot enough admire his genius. The whole is in
this way so completely formed anew, that it would be an interesting
task for the critic to point out, not only the alterations he has made,
but their degree of resemblance with, or dissimilarity to, the original ;
in the course of which I cannot deny that the gloomy heat of an
unbounded and exuberant despair, becomes at last oppressive to us.
Yet is the dissatisfaction we feel always connected with esteem and
admiration."

Lord JeflFrey, in the Edinburgh Review, thus distinguishes
Marlow's hero from Manfred : —

'* Faustus is a vulgar sorcerer, tempted to sell his soul to the
devil for the ordinary price of sensual pleasure, and earthly power
and glory ; and who shrinks and shudders in agony when the forfeit
comes to be exacted. The style, too, of Marlow, though elegant
and scholar-like, is weak and childish compared with the depth and
force of much of Lord Byron, and the disgusting buflPoonery of low
force, of which the piece is principally made up, place it more in
contrast, than in any terms of comparison, with that of his noble

* There is a translation of one of Manfred's soliloquies by Goethe in the last
complete edition of his Works, vol. iii. p. 207.

175

APPENDIX

successor. In the tone and pitch of the composition, as well as in
the character of the diction in the more solemn parts, Manfred
reminds us more of the Prometheus of iCschylus than of any more
modern performance."

The following extracts from Captain Medwin's Conversations may
also be placed here with propriety : —

" The Germans," said Byron, " and I believe Goethe himself,
consider that I have taken great liberties with ' Faust.' All I know
of that drama is from a sorry French translation, from an occasional
reading or two into English of parts of it by Monk Liewis, when at
Diodata, and from the Hartz-mountain scene that Shelley versiRed
from the other day. Nothing I envy him so much as to be able to
read that astonishing production in the original. As to originality,
Goethe had too much sense to pretend that he is not under obliga-
tions to authors ancient and modern ; who is not ? You tell me the
plot is almost entirely Calderon*s. The F6te, the Scholar, the
argument about the Logos, the selling himself to the fiend, and
afterwards denying his power ; his disguise of the plumed cavalier,
the enchanted mirror, are all from Cyprian. That magico prodigiosa
must be worth reading, and nobody seems to know anything
about it but you and Shelley."*^ Then the vision is not unlike that of
Marlow's in his 'Faustus.' The bed-scene is from 'Cymbeline;* the
song or serenade, a translation of Ophelia's in ' Hamlet ; ' and more
than all, the prologue is from Job, which is the Rrst drama in the
world, and perhaps the oldest poem. I had an idea of writing a ' Job,'
but I found it too sublime. There is no poetry to be compared
with it."

'' I told him that Japhet's soliloquy in ' Heaven and Earth,' and
address to the Mountains of Caucasus, strongly resembled Faust's.
' I shall have commentators enough by and by,' said he, ' to dissect my
thoughts, and find owners for them.' " — MedwitCs Conversations of
Lord Byron, pp. 141, 142.

Again : " I have a great curiosity about everything relating to
Goethe, and please myself with thinking there is some analogy between

* The trifling analogy that really does exist between the works, is mentioned in
almost all the Commentaries. It is hardly possible for Shelley to have said that Gothe*s
plot is almost entirely Calderon*s, and Captain Medwin had probably been enlarging to
Lord Byron on what Shelley had incidentally mentioned as coincidences.

176

NOTES

our characters and writings. So much interest do I take in him, that
I offered to give 100/. to any person who would translate his 'Memoirs'
for my own reading. Shelley has sometimes explained part of them
to me. He seems to be very superstitious, and is a believer in
astrology, — or rather was, for he was very young when he wrote the
first part of his life. I would give the world to read ' Faust ' in the
original. I have been urging Shelley to translate it, but he said that
the translator of ' Wallenstein ' was the only person living who could
venture to attempt it; that he had written to Coleridge, but in vain.
For a man to translate it he must think as he does."

" How do you explain," said I, " the first line,

'The sun thunders through the sky?*

" He speaks of the music of the spheres in Heaven," said he,
"where, as in Job, the first scene is laid." — Medwin*s Conversations,
p. 267.

Tieck, towards the end of his masterly Introduction to Lenz's
Works, discountenances the notion that either Byron or Scott was
under any literary obligation to Goethe. This notion, as regards Scott,
is in part supported by reference to individual characters or passages
in his works, (as Finella copied from Mignon, or the interview between
Leicester and Amy, at Cumnor, imitated from Egmont,) but principally
by supposing that the translation of Gotz von Berlichingen first
inspired him with a taste for that style of writing in which he after-
wards so pre-eminently distinguished himself.* Unluckily for this
theory, it is now well known that he had this taste already ;t and even
without any direct evidence upon the point, it seems more probable
that the taste originated the translation, than the translation the taste.
Scott says that the rhythm and irregular versification of The Lay of
the Last Minstrel were imitated from Christabel; but were not these
peculiarities of Christabel imitated from Faust ?

"I was once pressed — many years ago — to translate the Faust;
and I so far entertained the proposal as to read the work through
with great attention, and to revive in my mind my own former plan
of Michael Scott. But then I considered with myself whether the
time taken up in executing the translation might not more worthily

* Mr. Carlyle (Specimens of German Romance, vol. iv. p. 6,) starts this supposition,
t See the Annotated Edition of the Waverley Novels, vol. i. General Preface.

177

APPENDIX

be devoted to the composition of a work which, even if parallel in
some points to the Faust, should be truly original in motive and
execution, and therefore more interesting and valuable than any
version which I could make ; — and, secondly, I debated with myself
whether it became my moral character to render into English — ^and
so far, certainly, lend my countenance to language — much of which
I thought vulgar, licentious, and blasphemous. I need not tell
you that I never put pen to paper as a translator of Faust." —
Coleridge* s TahU Talk, vol. ii. pp. 117, 118.

P. 15. For this very reason is all joy torn from me. — " I communed
with my own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and
have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me
in Jerusalem, yea, my heart hath great experience of wisdom and
knowledge.

" And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness
and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in
much wisdom is much grief : and he that increaseth knowledge,
increaseth sorrow." — Eccl, c. 1.

P. 16. / have therefore devoted myself to magic. — Goethe tells
us, in his Memoirs, that whilst he was confined by ill-health, he
and Miss von Klettenberg read through several books on alchemy;
^'S'f Welling's Opus Mago-Caballisticum, Theophrastus Paracelsus
Basilius Valentinus, Helmont, Starkey, and the Aurea Catena
Homeri.* The study of these writers subsequently induced Goethe
to put up a small chemical apparatus, of which he says : — " Now
were certain ingredients of the Macrocosmus and Microcosmus
dealt with after a strange fashion." In his Farhenlehre^ also, he
enters upon an animated defence of natural magic. It is clear
from many passages in his Memoirs, that the reflections on the
insufficiency of knowledge which he has here put into the mouth
of Faust, were his own at one period. For instance : — " The
remarkable puppet-show fable of Faust found many an answering
echo in my breast. I too had ranged through the whole round of
knowledge, and was early enough led to see its vanity."

P. 16. Nostradamus. — " Nostradamus, properly Michel Notre
Dame, born in 1503, at St. Remy in Provence, of a family of

* During (Life of Goethe^ p. 72) mentions the circumstance and connects it with
Faust.

178

NOTES

Jewish origin, studied medicine, applied himself somewhat to
quackery, and fell at last into the favourite malady of his age,
astrology. The prophecies which, from his seclusion at Salon, he
made known in rhymed quatrains under the title of ' Centuries of
the World,' excited great notice by their style and their obscurity.
Henry the Second, King of France, sent for the author and rewarded
him royally. When, subsequently, this monarch was wounded in
a tournament, and lost his life, men believed that the prophecy of
this event was to be found in the 35th quatrain of the First
Century : —

" * Le lion jeune le vieux surmontera.
En camps bellique par singulier duel,
Dans cage d*or les yeux lui crevera.
Deux plaies une, puis mourir mort cruelle.'

" The most distinguished persons of his time visited him at Salon.
Charles the Ninth appointed him his physician. There were not
wanting people, however, who made light of his prophecies. So
late as 1781, they were prohibited by the Papal Court, because the
downfall of Papacy was announced in them. He died at Salon in
1565." — Conversations- Lexicon, tit. Nostradamus.

P. 17. Macrocosm, and Spirit of the Earth or Microcosm. —
Dr. Hinrichs says : " The Macrocosm signifies Nature, as such,
and is opposed to Microcosm, as man." — p. 59. But I incline
to think Macrocosm means the Universe, and the Spirit of
Earth, the Earth generally. Thus Falk, in accounting for Faust's
weakness in the presence of the latter, says, ^* The mighty and
multiform universality of the earth itself — that focus of all phenomena,
which at the same time contains within itself sea, mountain,
storm, earthquake, tiger, lion, lamb, Homer, Phidias, Raphael,
Newton, Mozart, and Apelles — whom, appear when and where it
might, would it not strike with trembling, fear, and awe ? " — p. 247.
The Ganzen (I am here adopting the gloss of a friend) is the
Omneity of the metaphysicians, and Bins in dem Andem xvirkt und
Ubt, is The Immanence of All in each of Plato.

'' But the best commentary on the whole of the passage in which
these words occur, is to be found in the first chapter of Herder's
Ideen, who (according to Falk) received many of his notions from
Ooethe. The analogy of the following passage is sufficiently

179

APPENDIX

marked : — " When, therefore, I open the great book of Heaven, and
see before me this measureless palace, which alone, and everywhere,
the Godhead only has power to fill, I conclude, as undistractedly as
I can, from the whole to the psu*ticular, from the particular to the
whole." — Ideen, b. i. c. 1.

The Spirits' chaunt probably suggested Shelley's —

" Nature's vast frame — the web of human things,
Birth and the grave I *'

In Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays (vol. v.) is " A Moral Mask,"
entitled "Microcosm," by Thomas Nabbs, in which Nature, Earth,
Fire, Water, &c., &c., figure as dramatis personse.

''According to Paracelsus," says Mr. Heraud, ''the macrocosm
is the great world, and man is the microcosm, or a little world — a
kind of epitome of the great. Oswald Crollius, ' physician to the
most illustrious Prince Christian Anhaltin,' in his admonitory preface
to Paracelsus's Three Books of Philosophy, delivers himself right
learnedly on both worlds, macros and micros,'*

P. 17. How heavenly powers, &c. — "And he dreamed, and behold,
a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached the heaven ;
and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it." —
Genesis, c. xxviii. v. 12.

P. 18. A cold shuddering, &c, —

" Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones
to shake.

" Then a spirit passed before my face : the hair of my flesh stood
up." — The Book of Job, ch. iv.

P. 19. Enter Wagner. — The traditional Faust had a disciple or
pupil named Wagner or Wagenar, who figures in all the dramas or
histories founded on the fable. He is thus described in Cayet's
Translation of Widman : — " Le Docteur Fauste avoit un jeune
serviteur qu'il avoit 6le\6 quand il 6tudioit i Wittenberg, que vit
toutes les illusions de son maftre Fauste, toutes ses magies et tout
son art diabolique. II 6toit un mauvais gargon, coureur et d6bauch6
du commencement qu'il vint demeurer k Wittenberg: il mendoit, et
personne ne le vouloit prendre k cause de sa mauvaise nature ; le
gargon se nommoit Christofle Wagner, et fut d^s-lors serviteur du
Dr. Fauste; il se tint tr^s bien avec lui, en sorte que le Dr. Fauste
I'appeloit son fils : il alloit oii il vouloit, quoiqu'il all&t tout boitant

i8o

NOTES

et de travers." A book entitled " Christoph. Wagner's Magic Arts
and Life of Dr. Faust/' was published at Berlin, in 1714, assumed
to be by the veritable attendant of the philosopher.

Dr. Hinrichs has a strange theory about this character. In his
opinion, Faust represents Philosophy, and Wagner, Empiricism;
Philosophy being Germany, and Empiricism all the rest of the world.

It is also worthy of remark that one of Goethe's early friends was
called Wagner. He signalized himself by stealing from Faust (which
was communicated to him in confidence previously to publication)
the tragic portion relating to Margaret, and making it the subject of
a tragedy, called the Infanticide. Goethe expresses great indignation
at the treachery. — Memoirs^ B. 14.

P. 23. To possess what thou hast inherited from thy sires, enjoy
it. — The inscription on an old tomb-stone may serve to illustrate the
meaning of this passage : —
" What I gave, I have ; what I spent, I had ; what I left, I lost."

P. 28. Behind, far away, in Turkey. The common people in
Germany are wont to consider themselves as placed forward in the
world, and speak of certain distant or outlandish countries as behind.

P. 29. Saint Andrew's eve, &c. — " There is a belief that on St.
Andrew's eve, St. Thomas's eve, Christmas eve, and New Year's eve,
a maiden might invite and see her future lover. A table must be
covered for two, but without forks. Whatever the lover leaves behind
him, on going away, must be carefully picked up ; he then attaches
himself to her who possesses it, and loves her ardently. But he
should never be allowed to come to the sight of it again, or he will
think of the pain he endured on that night by supernatural means,
and becomes aware of the charm, whereby great unhappiness is
occasioned. A beautiful maiden in Austria once sought to see her
lover according to the necessary forms, whereupon a shoemaker
entered with a dagger, threw it to her, and immediately disappeared
again. She took up the dagger and locked it away in a chest. Soon
afterwards came the shoemaker and sought her in marriage. Some
years after their marriage, she went one Sunday after vespers to the
chest to look out something which she wanted for her next day's work.
As she opened the chest, her husband came to her and insisted on
looking in ; she held him back, but he pushed her aside, looked into
the chest, and saw his lost dagger. He instantly seizes it, and requires

i8i N

APPENDIX

to know, in a word, how she got it, as he had lost it at a peculiar time.
In her confusion she was unable to think of an excuse, and freely
owns that it is the same dagger which he had left behind on that
night when she required to see him. Upon this he grew furious, and
exclaimed, with a fearful oath : ' Then thou art the girl, who tortured
me so inhumanly that night.' And with that he struck the dagger
right through her heart.

"The like is related in various places of others. Orally, of a
huntsman who left his hanger. During her first confinement the wife
sent him to her chest to fetch clean linen, forgetting that the charmed
instrument was there, which he finds and kills her with it." — (Deutsche
Sagen, Herausgegeben von den Briidem Grimm. Berlin^ 1816, No. 114).
The same work (No. 118) contains a story founded on the superstition
of the magic mirror (alluded to in the next line but one), in which
absent friends or lovers may be seen. This superstition, however, is
not peculiar to Germany.

P. 30. River and rivulet^ &c, — To understand Faust's position in
this speech, the reader must fancy a town on a river, like most of those
upon the Rhine, with a suburban village on the opposite bank. Falk
makes this scene the groundwork of a commentary on the advantages
of the Sabbath ; a fair specimen of the mode in which most of the
commentaries on Faust are eked out.

P. 33. There was a red lion, &c, — Mr. T. Griffiths, of Kensington,
who delivered an extremely interesting lecture on Alchymical Signs at
the Royal Institution, enables me to furnish an explanation of this
passage, which has generally been passed over as (what M. Saint-
Aulaire is pleased to term it) galimatias.

There was a red lion. — This expression implies the red stone, red
mercury, or cinnabar.

A bold lover. — This expression alludes to the property the above
compound possessed (according to the adepts) of devouring, swallowing,
or ravishing every pure metallic nature or body.

— married, — This simply implies the conjoining or union of two
bodies of opposite natures ; red and white were supposed to be male
and female.

— to the lily. — This term denotes a preparation of antimony, called
lilium minerale, or lilium Paracelsi ; the white stone, or perhaps
albified mercury, sometimes called the " white fume," or the " most
milk-white swanne." 132

NOTES

— in the tepid bath. — This denotes a vessel filled with heated water,
or a " balneum Marias," used as a very convenient means of elevating
the body of an aludel or alembic slowly to a gentle heat.

— and then xvith open flame. — This means the direct and fierce
application of fire to the aludel upon its removal from the water bath,
after the marriage had taken place betwixt the '' red and the white."

— tortured. — The adepts deemed their compounds sensible of
pleasure and pain ; the heat of the open fire tortured the newly united
bodies; these therefore endeavoured to escape, or sublime, which is
the sense in which the word tortured is to be taken.

— from one bridal chamber, — ^This means the body of the aludel, in
which they were first placed, and which had been heated to such a
degree as to cause their sublimation.

— to anotlter — This signifies the glass head or capital placed on the
body of the aludel, which received the sublimed vapours. Many heads
were put on in succession, into which the vapours successively passed.

// the young queen. — This implies the supposed royal offspring of
the red lion and the lily, or its alliance to the noble metals — the
sublimer products.

— with varied hues then appeared. — During the process, various
hues appeared on the sublimed compound; according to the order of
their appearance, the perfection or completion of the great work was
judged of. Purple and ruby were most esteemed, for being royal
colours they were good omens.

— in the glass. — ^This means the glass head or capital of the aludel,
as before noticed.

— this was the medicine. — The term medicine was used to express
both the elixir to heal human bodies, and that to transmute the bodies
of metals into the purest gold and silver.

The passage divested of alchymical obscurity would read thus : —

"There was red mercury, a powerfully acting body, united with
the tincture of antimony, at a gentle heat of the water-bath. Then
being exposed to the heat of the open fire in an aludel, a sublimate
filled its heads in succession, which, if it appeared with various hues,
was the desired medicine."

In his note to me, Mr. Griffiths adds : — " All the terms it contains
may be found in alchymical works; it is a very good specimen of
mystical writing."

183 N a

APPENDIX

P. 34. The silver brook flowing into golden streams, — This may
allude to the gradual gliding of the waters, as the sunbeams come to
play upon them, or to another natural phenomenon, which I will
explain by an anecdote. In the summer of 1831, it was my good
fortune to pass through the beautiful valley of Ahrenberg, a valley
which wants but a Moore to make an Ovoca of it. Whilst we were
changing horses, I walked with a German student to a rising ground
to get a better view of the scenery. The setting sun was shining
in such a manner, that the beams massed themselves on a broad part
of the stream, and fell transversely over a tributary brook, thus
giving a rich golden glow to the river and the appearance of a white
silvery line to the rivulet. We had hardly gained the height, when
my fellow-traveller exclaimed : —

" Den Silberbach in goldne Stroma fliessen."

P. 34. The realms of an exalted ancestry. — This alludes to a
supposed divine origin of the soul or spirit of man, or to — " For I
am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with
Christ, which is better." — PhiL i.

P. 35. — Invoke not the well-known troops which diffuses itself^
streamings through the atmosphere^ &c, — " The spirits of the aire will
mix themselves with thunder and lightning, and so infest the clyme
where they raise any tempest, that soudainely great mortality shall
ensue to the inhabitants." — (Pierce Pennilesse his Supplication^ 1592;
cited in Steeven's Shakspeare.) " The air is not so full of flies in
summer, as it is at all times of invisible devils; this Paracelcus stiflly
maintains." — Burton^ Anat. part i.

P. 35. A line of fire follows upon his track. — In his work on
Colours, Goethe gives the following explanation of this phenomenon : —
" A dark object, the moment it withdraws itself, imposes on the eye
the necessity of seeing the same form bright. Between jest and
earnest, I shall quote a passage from Faust which is applicable here.
(Then follows the passage.) This had been written some time, — from
poetical intuition and in half consciousness, — when, as it was growing
twilight, a black poodle ran by my window in the street, and drew
a clear, shining appearance after him, — the undefined image of his
passing form remaining in the eye. Such phenomena occasion the
more pleasing surprise, as they present themselves most vividly and
beautifully, precisely when we suffer our eyes to wander unconsciously.

184

NOTES

There is no one to whom such counterfeit images have not often
appeared, but they are allowed to pass unnoticed; yet I have known
persons who teased themselves on this account, and believed it to
be a symptom of the diseased state of their eyes, whereupon the
explanation which I had it in my power to give inspired them with
the highest satisfaction. He who is instructed as to the real nature
of it, remarks the phenomenon more frequently, because the reflexion
immediately suggests itself. Schiller wished many a time that this
theory had never been communicated to him, because he was
everywhere catching glimpses of that the necessity for which was
known to him." The phenomenon is now a recognised and ^miliar
one. See Sir David Brewster's Letters oti Natural Magic, p. 20.

In a note to the following lines in the Lay of the Last Minstrel,
there is a strange story of a fiend appearing in the shape of a
black dog : —

•* For he was speechless, ghastly, wan,
Like him of whom the story ran.
He spoke the spectre-hound in Man." — Canto 6.

According to the tradition, Faust was constantly attended by an
evil spirit in the shape of a black dog. This four-footed follower
has a place in most of the old pictures, those in Auerbach*s cellar
not excepted.

P. 37. We are accustomed to see men deride what they do not
understand. — " It has often and with truth been said, that unbelief
is an inverted superstition, and our age sufi^ers greatly by it. A
noble deed is attributed to selfishness, an heroic action to vanity, an
undeniable poetic production to a state of delirium ; nay, what is
still stranger, everything of the highest excellence that comes forth,
everything most worthy of remark that occurs, is, so long as it is
barely possible, denied." — Goethe, Farbenlehre.

P. 38. We long for revelation, which nowhere burns, &c. — It
is clear from Goethe's Memoirs, and many other parts of his works,
that he is here describing the workings of his own mind in youth ;
that, when his spirit was tormented by doubts, he constantly referred
to the Bible for consolation, and found it there. It also appears
that he occasionally struggled to penetrate below the surface in
somewhat the same manner as Faust. " So far as the main sense
was concerned, I held by Luther's edition; in particulars, I referred

185

APPENDIX

occasionally to Schmidt's verbal translations, and sought to make
my little Hebrew as useful as I could." It is a singular fact that,
next to the Bible, the book which Goethe was fondest of, and which
confessedly exercised the greatest influence on his mind, was Spinosa.
So constantly, indeed, was he studying this writer, that Herder on
one occasion is said to have exclaimed to hinl, '' Why you literally
never read any Latin book but Spinosa I "

In one of Lessing's plans for a drama to be founded on Faust,
Faust was to be studying Aristotle (Ueber Goethe's Faust, &c., 82).

In Calderon*s El Magico Prodigioso, Cyprian is studying Pliny.

P. 39. Salamander, Undine, Sylph, Kobold. — I shall illustrate
Faust's conjuration by an extract from a very singular work,
Entretiens sur Us Sciences secretes du Comte de Gabalis, by M. de
Villars, in which Salamanders, Undines, Sylphs, and Kobolds (alias
Gnomes) are described: —

" * When you shall be enrolled among the children of the
philosophers, and your eyes fortified by the use of the holy elixir,
will discover that the elements are inhabited by very perfect
creatures, of the knowledge of whom the sin of Adam deprived his
unfortunate posterity. The immense space between earth and sky
has other inhabitants than birds and flies ; the ocean other guests
than whales and sprats ; the earth was not made for moles alone,
nor is the desolating flame itself a desert.

"*The air is full of beings of human form, proud in appearance,
but docile in reality, great lovers of science, officious towards sages,
intolerant towards fools. Their wives and daughters are masculine
Amazonian beauties '

***HowI you do not mean to say that spirits marry?'

** * Be not alarmed, my son, about such trifles ; believe what I say
to be solid and true, and the faithful epitome of cabalistic science, which
it will only depend on yourself one day to verify by your own eyes.
Know then that seas and rivers are inhabited as well as the air ; and
that ascended sages have given the name of lindanes or Nymphs to
this floating population. They engender few males ; women overflow :
their beauty is extreme ; the daughters of men are incomparably
inferior.

"*The earth is filled down to its very centre with Gnomes, a people
of small stature, the wardens of treasures, mines, and precious stones.

1 86

NOTES

They are ingenious, friendly to man, and easy to command. They
furnish the children of sages with all the money they want, and ask
as the reward of their service only the honour of being commanded.
Their women are small, very agreeable, and magnificent in their attire.

"'As for the Salamanders, who inhabit the fiery region, they
wait on the sages, but without any eagerness for the task; their
females are rarely to be seen.' "

This book probably furnished Pope with machinery for his Rape
of the Lock, suggested the plot of Idris and Zenide to Wieland, and
gave De la Motte Fouqu6 a basis for his delightful story of Undine.

P. 40. Mephistopheles comes forward in the dress of a travelling
scholar. — "That Mephistopheles comes forth as a travelling scholar
(scholasticus),and therefore as a philosopher, is not without significance.
For on seeing him Faust knows that he is approached as a friend, he
himself being devoted to philosophy ; and even the expression
fahrender scholast expresses the unquiet with which Faust is filled.
The wandering about through the world — for example, of Jordanus
Bruno, &c. — is to be viewed with reference to internal restlessness,
impelled by which these philosophers wandered unceasingly from
place to place.'* — Dr. Hinrichs* ^sth. Vorl. p. 91 Dr. Stieglitz {Sage,
p. 64,) furnishes some curious particulars as to these scholastici
vagantes as they were called, from which it would seem that they did
not fill a very respectable station in society; and it is no compliment to
Giordano Bruno (a man of distinguished merit) to be put forth as an
example of the character.

P. 41. Fly-god, — ue. Beelzebub, whose name is partly compounded
of a Hebrew word signifying fly.

P. 41. / am a part of the part which in the beginning was all. —
" And the earth was without form and void ; and darkness was upon
the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Ood moved upon the face of
the waters.

" And God said, Let there be light : and there was light.

" And God saw the light, that it was good : and God divided the
light from the darkness." — Gen. c. i.

" Granted, that day, proceeding from the original source of light,
deserves all honour, because it invigorates, quickens, gladdens — still
it does not follow that darkness must be addressed and shunned as
the evil principle, because it makes us uneasy, and lulls us to sleep ;

187

APPENDIX

we rather see in such an effect the characteristics of sensuous beings
controlled by phenomena/* — Goethe.

P. 41. That xffhich is opposed to nothing. — Dr. Schubart cautions
us against supposing that under the term nichts a complete void is
intended, as it means merely the original state of things under the
reign of Chaos.

P. 42. From air, water, earth, &c. — " In the air, in the water, in
the marshes, in the sand, — genera and species multiplied, and I believe
that they will continue to multiply in the same proportion with the
course of discovery." — Herder, Ideen zur Philosophie, &c. b. 2, c. 4.

P. 42. The Pentagram. — The Pentagram, Pentalpha, or
Drudenfuss, was a Pentagonal figure like the following : —

— supposed to possess the same sort of power which used popularly
to be attributed to the horseshoe amongst us.

Those who wish for more information on this subject may refer
to Schol. in Aristoph. Nub. 599, and Lucian's Dialogue — De lapsu
inter saliitandum — in the Amsterdam quarto edition of 1743, vol. i.
pp. 729, 730, in notis. The Pentalpha is also mentioned in Hobhouse's
Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, p. 334.

In one of a series of engravings by a Dutch artist of the beginning
of the seventeenth century (Van Sichem by name), Faust is repre-
sented standing within two intersecting circles, upon two intersecting
squares, conjuring Mephistopheles,who is just appearing in his trueshape.

P. 43. Tell me something worth telling. — It is a matter of doubt
whether gate Mdhr zu sagen does not mean to tell one's fortune.

P. 46. What can the world afford me ? — ** Thou shalt renounce I *'
— ''Thou shalt renounce T' — "Our physical as well as social life,
manners, customs, worldly wisdom, philosophy, religion, all exclaim
to us, ** That we shall renounce." — Dichtung und Wahrheit, part ii.
book 17.

P. 48. That highest grace of love. — Meaning probably le don
d'amoureux merci, or the last favour,

P. 49. And what am I to do for you in return ? — The actual or
traditional compact was to the following effect : —

1 88

NOTES

" Puis le D. Fauste re9oit son sang sur une tuile, et y met des
charbons tout chauds, et 6crit comme s'ensuit ci apr^s :

"'Jean Fauste, Docteur, reconnois de ma propre main mani-
festement pour une chose ratifi^e, et ce en vertu de cet 6crit :
qu'apr^s que je me suis mis k sp^culer les 616mens, et apr^s les
dons qui m'ont 6t6 distribuez et d^partis deld-haut : lesquels n'ont
point trouv^ d'habitude dans mon entendement. Et de ce que
je n'ai peu £tre enseign6 autrement des hommes, lors je me suis
pr^sentement adonne k un Esprit, qui s'appelle Mtphistophiles^
qui est valet du prince infernal en Orient, par paction entre lui et
moi, qu'il m'adresseroit et m*apprendroit, comme il m*6toit pr6destin6,
qui aussi r^ciproquement m*a promis de m*^tre sujet en toutes
choses. Partant et a Topposite, je lui ai promis et lui certifie, que
d'ici k vingt-quatre ans de la date de ces pr^sentes, vivant jusques-
\k compl^tement, comme il m'enseignera en son art et science, et en
ses inventions me maintiendra, gouvernera, conduira, et me fera tout
bien, avec toutes choses n^cessaires k mon corps, k mon &me, k ma
chair, k mon eang, et k ma sant6: que je suis et serai sien d jamais.
Partant, je renonce k tout ce qui est pour la vie du maitre celeste et
de tous les hommes, et que je sois en tout sien. Pour plus grande
certitude, et plus grande confirmation, j'ai 6crit la pr^sente promesse
de ma propre main, et Tai sous6crit de mon propre sang que je me
suis tir6 express6ment pour ce faire, de mon sens et de mon jugement,
de ma pens6e et volenti, et Tai arrfitfe, scell6 et testifi6, &c." — Cayefs
Widman part i.

In MarIow*s Faustus the instrument is formally set out.

P. 49. But if thou hast food, <?c. — ^This passage has caused a
good deal of puzzling, though neither Falk nor Schubart seems to
be aware of any difficulty : —

" I know thy rotten gifts," says Faust. ** Which of thy fine
goods of the earth will'st thou offer me ? How could the like of
thee ever be capable of measuring the unquiet of man*s breast.
Hast thou food to serve up which never satisfies? Or canst thou
only show trees which daily bloom anew and bud again ? I loathe
this foliage of yesterday, this tale, which, ever the same, is told in
the morning, and in the evening dies away again —

" Zeig mir die Frucht die fault eh' man sie bricht

Und Baume die sich taglich neu begriinen.'* —

Falk, p. 283.
189 '^

APPENDIX

"This (Mephistopheles' promise) appears to Faust but mockery.
What can a devil give a man to satisfy him, when he is not capable
of giving it to himself? The gifts of a devil/* he says, "are but
delusion, and melt away in the same manner as his quicksilver-like
gold : thus he can only bestow fruits which would not rot before the
plucking, but no ever-budding tree sprouts forth beneath his skill and
fostering." — Schubart, 198.

None of the editions that I have seen make the hast du an
interrogatory, as Falk seems to understand it. There are authorities,
however, for construing it — Though thou hast, &c. It is also
contended that —

'* Doch hast du Speise die nicht sattigt, hast
Du rothes Geld, &c."

is to be construed affirmatively: "However, thou hast food which never
satisfies,'\&c. ; — and that the zeig mir, &c., is ironical and tantamount to
saying : " This is all thou canst show me." But on this construction
I do not see how the inversion of the second hast du is to be justified,
whilst the answer of Mephistopheles clearly implies that the zeig
mitf &c., was a demand on the part of Faust. The most probable
supposition is, that Faust*s meaning was pretty nearly the same as in
the subsequent speech, in which he expresses a wish to enjoy all that is
parcelled out among mankind. Taking this wish into consideration,
we may well suppose him saying : — " You can give nothing of any real
value in the eyes of a man like me ; but if you have the common
perishable enjoyments of humanity to bestow, let me have them."

P. 50. At the doctor's feast. — Alluding to the inauguration-feast
given on the taking of a degree.

P. 52. / am not a hair's breadth higher ^ &c. — " Which of you by
taking thought can add one cubit to his stature ? " — Matt. vi. 27.

P. 53. A Student enters. — This scene is a satire on the modes of
instruction pursued in German Universities, and has been much
admired. But the effect is in a great measure produced by the
happy application of pedantic phrases and college slang, which are
no more capable of being relished in England than such terms
as wooden-spoon, little-go, cramming, plucking, in Germany. A
distinguished scholar thus mentions this scene and the three other
scenes which have been thought to resemble it in tone : — " To the
great and overwhelming tragic powers of Goethe, Aristophanes, of

190

NOTES

course, can make no pretension ; but in their preference of the
arbitrary comic to the comic of manners, the two writers come very
close together ; and both writers should have lived, as Madame de
Stael expresses it, when there was an intellectual chaos, similar to
the material chaos. Had Aristophanes written in modern times, it
is, perhaps, not impertinent to suggest, that the Auerbach's Keller
in Leipzig, the Hexenkiiche, the Walpurgisnacht, and perhaps the
quizzing scene with the young student just fresh from his university,
are precisely the sort of scenes which would have fallen from his
pen." — MitchelVs Translation of Aristophanes, Preface, p. xxvii.

It is evident from many passages in his Memoirs, that Goethe*s
early impressions of university pursuits were pretty nearly what he
has put into the mouth of Mephistopheles ; nor, if we are to believe
Falk, did his opinions change materially in after-life : —

" Our scientific men are rather too fond of details. They count
out to us the whole consistency of the earth in separate lots, and are
so happy as to have a different name for every lot. That is argil
(Thonerde) ; that is quartz {Keiserlerde) ; that is this, and this is that.
But what am I the better if I am ever so perfect in all these names ?
When I hear them I always think of the old lines in Faust —

• Encheire sin naturce nennt's die Chemie
Bohrt sich selber Esel und weiss nicht wie I '

"What am I the better for these lots? what for their names? I
want to know what it is that impels every several portion of the
universe to seek out some other portion, — either to rule or to obey
it, — and qualifies some for the one part and some for the other,
according to a law innate in them all, and operating like a voluntary
choice. But this is precisely the point upon which the most perfect
and universal silence prevails."

" Everything in science," said he at another time, with the same
turn of thought, "is become too much divided into compartments.
In our professors' chairs the several provinces (Facher) are violently
and arbitrarily severed, and alloted into half-yearly courses of
lectures, according to fixed plans. The number of real discoveries
is small, especially when one views them consecutively through a
few centuries. Most of what these people are so busy about, is mere
repetition of what has been said by this or that celebrated predecessor.
Such a thing as independent original knowledge is hardly thought of.

191

APPENDIX

Young men are driven in flocks into lecture-rooms, and are crammed,
for want of any real nutriment, with quotations and words. The
insight which is wanting to the teacher, the learner is to get for
himself as he may. No great wisdom or acuteness is necessary to
perceive that this is an entirely mistaken path." — Mrs. Austin's
Characteristics of Goethe,

It is worthy of note that Burton {Anat. part i., sect. 2, sub-sec.
7), remarks on the several sciences in somewhat the same spirit as
Goethe.

P. 55. Spanish boots. — The Spanish boot was an instrument of
torture, like the Scottish boot mentioned in Old Mortality (vol. ii.
p. 406).

P. 55. Then many a day will be spent in teaching you, &c. —
** In logic it struck me as strange that I was so to pull to pieces,
dismember, and, as it were, destroy those very operations of the
mind which I had gone through with the greatest ease from my
youth, in order to perceive the proper use of them." — Goethe's
Memoirs.

P. 56. As if the Holy Ghost were dictating to you, — It is or
was the custom in Germany for the professors to read slowly
enough for their pupils to follow them with the pen. This was
called dictating.

P. 56. / cannot reconcile myself to jurisprudence, — Here again
Goethe is repeating his own sentiments. He was originally destined
by his father for the law, but it was only with the greatest
reluctance that he could be brought to qualify himself for the
necessary examination at Strasburg, where such examinations were
comparatively light. He says, that he had no turn for anything
positive. — {Memoirs, book ix.) The exclamation, " Woe to thee that
thou art a grandson," alludes to the artificial and complicated
systems which people coming late into the world are pretty sure to
find entailed upon them. The law that is born with us, means, I
suppose, what in common parlance is called the law of nature. It
may assist future translators, not versed in German jurisprudence,
to be told, that Gesetz, in strictness, means enactment, and Recht,
law or a rule of law, generally. Gesctz, iind Rechte, therefore, are
both included under the term laws.

P. 57. The spirit of medicine. — Goethe associated a good deal

192

NOTES

with medical students at Strasburg, and took considerable interest
in the studies usually followed in connection with medicine.

P. 59. Auerbach's cellar in Leipzig. — Auerbach's cellar is a
place of public entertainment of the same class and character as the
Cider Cellar in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. I supped there
during my last visit to Germany, and took some pains to ascertain
the traditions connected with it, which the waiter seemed to have a
particular pleasure in communicating. He assured me that there
was not the shadow of a doubt as to my being seated in the very vault
in which both Faust and Goethe had caroused ; and producing an old
copy of Widman, he avowed himself ready to make oath that it had
been in the cellar, as a sort of heir-loom, for 300 years at the least. It
was really a very curious copy, but bore the date of MDCXCV. The
principal curiosities of the vault are two very old paintings, shaped
like the segment of a circle, painted, it is supposed, to commemorate
Faust's presence and achievements there. The one represents him at
the table drinking to the sound of music, with a party of students ; the
other represents him in the act of passing out of the door upon a cask,
whilst the spectators are holding up their hands in astonishment. The
first- mentioned bears a Latin inscription, which has proved a puzzler
to the philologists :

" Vive, Bibe, Obgregare, Memor

Fauste hujus et hujus

Paense. Aderat claudo haec

Asterat ample Gradu. — 1525."

A distinguished scholar. Dr. Maginn, proposes to read it thus : —

** Vive, Bibe, Obgregare, Memor
Fausti hujus et hujus
Paenae. Aderat clauda haec
Ast, erat ampla Gradu.— 1525."

Over the other are inscribed the lines following : —

** Doctor Faust zu dieser Frist
Aus Aurbach's Keller geritten ist,
Auf einem Fass mit Wein geschwind,
Welches gesehen viel Mutterkind.
Solches durch seine subtile Kraft hat gethan,
Und des Teufel's Lohn empfangen davon. — 1525."

It has been made a doubt whether this date (1525) refers to the
time at which the pictures were painted, or to that at which the

193

APPENDIX

adventures took place. The following are the best traditional accounts
of the magical exploits in the text : —

** At the city of Prague is a publican's house, known by the sign of
the Anchor, where the Doctor one day called as he was upon a tour.
Seating himself among the travellers, in a short time he thus accosted
them — * Gentlemen, would you like to partake of all kinds of foreign
wines in the world ? ' The whole party, with one accord, cried out,
' Yes, yes 1 ' ' Then will you first like to taste the French, Spanish,
Rhenish, Malaga, or any other kind?' continued he, 'whichever you
most approve.*

" Upon this one of the guests exclaimed : — ' Doctor Faustus I
whatever wine you please to furnish, Doctor, we shall find some means
of disposing of it.' Whereupon he begged them to provide him with
plenty of bottles and glasses, and he would supply the rest. This being
done, he bored several holes in the table, and placing a funnel in each,
he held the bottles under it, and decanted as much wine as they would
contain. As he laid them down one after another, the delighted guests
began to laugh heartily, and heartily did they regale themselves." —
Roscoe^s German Novelists, vol. i. p. 377. The other adventure, in
which the guests of Faust seize each other's noses mistaking them
for grapes, is also told by Mr. Roscoe. The old French version of
Widman runs thus : —

** Le Docteur Fauste avoit, en un certain lieu, invito des hommes
principaux pour les traiter, sans qu'il etit appr£t6 aucune chose.
Quand done ils furent venus, ils virent bien la table couverte, mais la
cuisine ^toit encore froide. II se faisoit aussi des noces, le mSme soir,
d'un riche et honn^te bourgeois, et avoient ^t^ tous les domestiques de
la maison emp^chez, pour bien et honorablement traiter les gens qui y
^toient invitez. Ce que le Docteur Fauste aiant appris, commanda k
son Esprit que de ces noces il lui apport&t un service de vivres tout
appr^tez, soit poissons ou autres, qu'in-continent il les enlev&t de la pour
traiter ses h6tes. Soudain il y eut en la maison, oii Ton faisoit les
noces, un grand vent par les chemin^es, fenfetres et portes, qui ^teignit
toutes les chandelles. Apr^s que le vent fut cess6, et les chandelles
derechef allumez, et qu'ils eurent vH d'oii le tumulte avoit 6t6, ils
trouv^rent, qu'il manquoit d un mets une pi^ce de r6ti, d un autre une
poule, A un autre une oye, et que dans la chaudi^re il manquoit aussi
de grands poissons. Lors furent Fauste et ses invitez pourvils de

194

NOTES

vivres, mais le vin manquoit: toutefois non pas long-temps, car
Mephostophilis fus fort bien au voiage de Florence dans les caves de
Fougres dont il en apporta quantity ; mais apr^s qu'ils eurent mang^,
ils desiroient (qui est ce pour quoi ils ^toient principalement venus,)
qu'il leur fit pour plaisir quelque tour d'enchantemens. Lors il leur fit
venir sur la table une vigne avec ses grappes de saison, dont un chacun
en prit sa part. II commanda puis apr^s de prendre un cotiteau, et le
mettre si la racine, comme s'ils I'eussent vouler couper. N6anmoins,
ils n*en parent pas venir sL bout: puis apr^s, il s'en alia hors des 6tuves»
et ne tarda gu&res sans revenir ; lors ils s'arr£t6rent tous et se tinrent
Tun Tautre par le nez» et un cotiteau dessus. Quand done puis apr&s
ils voulurent, ils parent couper les grappes. Cela leur fut ainsi mis
aucunement, mais ils eurent bien voulu qu*il les e6t fait venir toutes
meures." — Part iii., ch. 33.

The adventure on the cask is also recorded in this history.

P. 60. Soar up, Madame Nightingale, give my sweetheart ten
thousand greetings for me. — The following is the song which
Goethe probably had in his mind : —

*' PRAU NACHTIOALL.

*' Nachtigal, ich hor dich singen
Das Herz mocht mir im Leib zerspringen,
Komme doch und sag mir bald,
Wie ich mich verhalten soil.

*' Nachtigal, ich seh dcih laufen,
Au dem Bachlein thust du saufen,
Du tunkst dein klein Schnablein ein
Meinst es war der beste Wein.

** Nachtigal, wo ist gut wohnen,
Auf den Linden, in den Kronen,
Bei der schon Frau Nachtigal,
Griiss mein Sch&tzchen tausendmaV*

This song is in the collection of Alte Deutsche Lieder, entitled
Des Knaben Wunderhom, compiled by MM. von Arnim and
Brentano. The plan was probably suggested by Dr. Percy's Relics ;
a book which (translated and imitated by Biirger, Herder, and
others,) has exercised at least as great an influence on German
literature as on our own. — See some interesting remarks on this
subject in the last edition of Wordsworth's Works, vol i. p. 329.

195

APPENDIX

P. 62. Leipsic is the place, &c. — It appears from his Memoirs,
that when Goethe commenced his college studies at Leipzig, a great
affectation of politeness prevailed amongst the students.

P. 62. / dare say you are lately from Rippach ? Did you sup
with Mr. Hans before you left? — Rippach is a village near Leipzig,
and to ask for Hans von Rippach, a fictitious personage, was an
old joke amongst the students. The ready reply of Mephistopheles
indicating no surprise, shows Siebel and Altmayer that he is up to
it. Hans is the German Jack, as Hans der Reisentodter, Jack the
Giant-killer.

P. 63. Mephistopheles sings. — A favourite at the court of
Weimar is said to be alluded to. '' Bertuch, the father," says
Falk, ** who was treasurer to the Duke, used in after times to speak
with great glee of a singular head in the accounts which he had to
submit in those days. It consisted almost entirely of breeches,
waistcoats, shoes and stockings for German literati, who were
wandering within the gates of Weimar, slenderly provided with
those articles." This song was set to music by Beethoven.

P. 68. Witches' Kitchen. — The best commentary on this scene
is to be found in Retzsch's Outlines. The monkeys are there
represented as something between the monkey and the baboon ;
but he himself told me that Meerkatze is the common little long-
tailed monkey. The term is thus used in a German translation of
Lear. " Eine unvergleichliche Ausflucht far einen Hurenjager,
seinen Meerkatzen-Trieb den Sternen zur Last zu legen." — Act i.
sc. 2, in Edmund's Speech on Planetary Influences. Madame de
Stael considers it to mean something between a monkey and a cat.

The following passage (in which Goethe is the speaker) may
save the reader a good deal of profitless puzzling : — " For thirty
years they (the Germans) have been sorely vexed and tormented
in spirit by the broomstick on the Blocksberg and the cat's dialogue
in the Witches' kitchen, which occur in Faust, and all the
interpreting and allegorising of this dramatic-humoristic extravaganza
have never thoroughly prospered. Really people should learn when
they are young to make and take a joke, and to throw away scraps
as scraps." — Falk.

P. 69. At the feast, &c. — Falk observes, in allusion to the text
of these three lines, that Faust and Mephistopheles are greeted in

196

NOTES

a tone which, through the diphthong au, bears a strong affinity to
the language of monkeys.

P. 69. Coarse beggars' broth. — "The breiten Bettel-Suppen
have an ironical reference to the coarse superstitions which extend
with a thick palpable shade amongst all nations throughout the
whole history of the world." — Falk.

P. 71 . Take the brush here, &c, — Retzsch represents Mephistopheles
as holding a light screen or fan in his hand.

P. 71. Oh I be so good as to glue the crown, &c. — "A wish
which, profoundly considered, sounds so politically, that one would
swear the monkey-spirits had read the history of both the old
Romish and the new empire, chapter by chapter, with all its
dethronings and assassinations, from the beginning of the Rrst to the
end of the last war." — Falk.

P. 73. Thou atomy. — " Thou atomy, thou 1 " — Shakespeare.

P. 73. The northern phantom is now no more to be seen. Where
do you now see horns, tail, and claws ? — The old German catechisms,
from Luther's time downwards, were generally adorned with a frontis-
piece, representing the devil with all the above-mentioned appendages.

P. 75. That is the witches' one-times-otie. — i.e., multiplication-table.

P. 75. For a downright contradiction, &c. — Dr. Hinrichs' note
on this passage is : — '' A system of philosophy which, like that of
Hegel, begins with such a contradiction, — for instance. Das Seyn
ist Nichts, has the advantage that it frightens away those who have no
call for it, both wise men and fools."

P. 77. Margaret. — Goethe's first love was called Margaret. She
was a girl of inferior rank in life, apprenticed, during the love-aifair,
to a milliner. He was about fifteen at the commencement of the
acquaintance, and she two or three years older. Previously to the
introduction he was in the habit of following her to church, but never
ventured on accosting her. — See the Dichtung und Wahrheit, h. 5.

P. 81. There was a King in Thule. — Many of the songs in Faust,
this among others, were not originally written for it. Goethe mentions
in his Memoirs that he sung this song with considerable applause in a
social meeting.

P. 89. / would change rings with you myself. — In some countries
of Germany the bridegroom, instead of placing the ring on the finger
of the bride, gives one to her and receives one in return.

197 o

APPENDIX

P. 89. Two witnesses. — Alluding to the rule of the civil law, which
forms the basis of all the German systems. — Unius responsio testis
omnino non audiatur, — Cod. 4, 20, 9.
P. 101. Were I a bird, &c.—

•• Wenn ich ein Voglein war,
Und auch zwei Fliigeln hatt.
Flog ich zu dir ;
Weils aber nicht karni seyn,
Bleib ich all hier.

" Bin ich gleich weit von dir,
Bin ich doch im Schlaf bei dir,
Und red mit dir ;
Wenn ich erwachen thu,
Bin ich allein.

** Bs vergeht keine Stund in her Nacht,
Da mein Herze nicht erwacht,
Und an dich gedenkt,
Dass du mir viel tausendmal
Dein Herze geschenkt."

Herder* s Volkslieder^ b. i., p. 67.
Wunderhom, part i., p. 231.

P. 102. The twin-pair y which feed among roses, — "Thy two
breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among
the lilies." — Song of Solomon, ch. iv., v. 5.

P. 106. / have no name for it. — "The Persian poet Saadi of
Schiraz says, according to Herder : — * Who knows God, is silent.* "

P. 106. Name is sound and smoke. — In most of the editions
preceding the collected edition of Goethe*s Works commenced in
1828, it stands : — Nature is sound and smoke.

P. 106. The man you have with you is hateful to me, &c. —
Margaret's intuitive apprehension of Mephistopheles is copied from
an incident mentioned in Goethe's Memoirs : — " I could scarcely
rest till I had introduced my friend Merk at Lotta's (the original
of Werther's Charlotte), but his presence in this circle did me no
good; for, like Mephistopheles, go wllire he will, he will hardly
bring a blessing with him.'' Goethe always called this friend
"Mephistopheles Merk," and gives a strange account of the mingled
goodness and devilishness oi his disposition.

198

NOTES

P. 108. Full of her faith, &c.—The words :—

*' Der ganz allein
Ihr selig machend ist,

have here the same meaning as in Dr. Carov6's celebrated work
Ueber Alleinseligmachende Kirche; ue., the Catholic Church.

P. 110. We will strew cut straw before her door. — This alludes
to a German custom something analogous to Skimmerton-riding in
this country. It consists in strewing cut or chopped straw before
the door of a bride whose virtue is suspected, the day before the
wedding. The garland (like the snood) is a token of virginity,
and a ruined maiden is said to have lost her garland.

P. 111. Zwinger. — Zwinger is untranslatable, and a good deal
of doubt exists as to the meaning of the term. '' Zwinger (says a
learned correspondent) from Zwingen, to subdue, is a name given
to castles found in some of the free towns, and formerly held by an
imperial governor. They are often in the middle of the town, and
have a passage wherein a devotional image with a lamp has occa-
sionally been placed, not expressly for the sake of devotion, but to
lighten up a dark passage; Margaret wishes to be unobserved,
and prefers this lonely spot to the chapel." This account was con-
firmed to me in conversation by Retzsch. In his outline of the
scene, Margaret is represented kneeling before an image of the
Virgin placed in a niche close to a church. Mr. Downes, in his
Letters from Continental Countries, says : " On our way (from
Goslar to the Rammelsberg) we visited the Zwinger, an old tower
of three stories, containing a saloon for masquerades. The walls are
so thick as to admit of a small side apartment adjoining one of the
windows. A scene in Goethe's Faust is entitled Zwinger; it is
perhaps identical with this."

P. 111. Mater Dolorosa. — The following lines of Manzoni (a
great favourite of Goethe) in his hymn to the Virgin, might be
supposed to have been suggested by this scene : —

" La femminetta nel tuo sen regale
La sua spregiata lagrima depone,
B a te, beata, della sur immortale
Alma gli affanni espone :
A te, che i prieghi ascolti e le querele

199 o 2

APPENDIX

Non come suole il mondo, n6 degl* imi
B de' grandi il dolor col suo cnidele
Discemimento estimL'*

P. 114. Can that be the treasure rising, Sc. — This alludes to a
superstitious belief that the presence of a treasure is indicated by a
blue light or flame to the initiated. The same allusion occurs in
the Intermezzo, and also in a little poem by Goethe, called Der
Schatzgrdber : —

" Und ich sah ein Licht von weitem,
Und es kam gleich einem Sterne."

P. 114. Lion-dollars — The Lowenthaler is a coin first struck by
the Bohemian Count Schlick, from the mines of Joachims-Thai in
Bohemia; the finest in the years 1518-1529, under Ludovick, the
Rrst king of Hungary and Bohemia. The one side represents the
fork-tailed lion, with the inscription — "Ludwig I. D. G. Rex Bohm."
The reverse, the full-length image of St. John, with the arms of
Schlick. — Kohler's Muntz-Belustigungen.

The common people in Germany believe (or believed) that rat-
catchers, by whistling or piping a peculiar note, could compel the rats
to follow them wherever they chose. — Deutche Sagen, No. 245. This
accounts for the application of the term to a serenading seducer.

P. 115. / am perfectly at home with the police, but should find
it hard to clear scores with the criminal courts. — Blutbann is an old
name for criminal jurisdiction in the general sense. The distinction
between Polizei-Uebertretungen and Verbrechen, to which the above
passage might otherwise be supposed to refer, was introduced into
the German systems in imitation of the French code; consequently
not till long after the period at which this scene was written. — See
Mittermaier's Strafverfahren, pp. 10 and 16. To make matters sure,
I referred both Blutbann and Blutschuld to M. Mittermaier himself.

It is common in Germany to say, Sie trdgt das Pfand der Liebe
unter ihrem Herzen — " She bears the pledge of love under her heart."
Thus Schiller in Die Kindesmorderin — " Nicht das Knablein unter
meinem Herzen?"

P. 118. / feel as if the organ, &c, — There is a passage in
Goethe's works (I forgot to note down the place) in which he
describes the Dies irce as having a similar efl^ect upon himself.

200

NOTES

P. 120. May 'Day Night. The Hartz Mountains. District of
Schirke and Elend. — Walpurgis is the name of the female saint who
converted the Saxons to Christianity. May-day Night is dedicated
to her. The Hartz is the most northerly range of mountains in
Germany, and comprises (according to the Conversations- Lexicon)
about 1350 square miles, mostly within the district of Hanover.
The Brocken or Blocksberg is the summit of the chain, on the top
of which all the witches of Germany hold an annual meeting.
Schirke and Blend are two villages on or near the Brocken, As
these mountains are now a favourite resort of tourists, it is useless
to add a minute description of them. Mr. Downes, in his Letters
from Continental Countries, has given a con amore description of the
localities; and Heine has supplied some curious particulars in the
first volume of his Reisebilder, Dr. Schubart says, that, as the
Greeks had their Olympus, the Jews their Sinai, the Spaniards their
Montserrat, the Indians the Himelaya mountains, so have the Germans
their Blocksberg. In the case of the Blocksberg, however, there are
assignable causes for the superstitions associated with it, in addition
to that which the wildness of the mountain affords. On the Rrst
establishment of Christianity, the Druids are said to have taken
refuge on it; and the lights and noises attendant on the celebration
of their rites were mistaken by the surrounding peasantry for sorcery.
In one of Goethe's minor poems. Die erste Walpurgisnacht,
spiritedly translated by Dr. Anster, the effects of this belief are
vividly pourtrayed. Another cause is to be found in a phenomenon
thus described by the author of Waverley. "The solitudes of the
Hartz forest in Germany, but especially the mountains called
Blocksberg, or rather Brockenburg, are the chosen scenes for the
tales of witches, demons, and apparitions. The occupation of the
inhabitants, who are either miners or foresters, is of a kind that
renders them peculiarly prone to superstition, and the natural
phenomena which they witness in pursuit of their solitary or
subterraneous profession, are often set down by them to the
interference of goblins or the power of magic. Among the various
legends current in that wild country, there is a favourite one, which
supposes the Hartz to be haunted with a kind of tutelar demon, in
the shape of a wild man, of huge stature, he head wreathed with
oak-leaves, and his middle cinctured with the same, bearing in his

20 1

APPENDIX

hand a pine torn up by the roots. It is certain that many profess
to have seen such a form traversing, with huge strides, in a line
parallel to their own course, the opposite ridge of a mountain, when
divided from it by a narrow glen ; and indeed the fact of the apparition
is so generally admitted, that modern scepticism has only found refuge
by ascribing it to optical deception." — The Antiquary, vol. i. p. 249.

This optical deception admits of a simple explanation : — " When
the rising sun throws his rays over the Brocken upon the body of
a man standing opposite to fine light clouds floating around or
hovering past him, he needs only fix his eye steadily upon them, and
in all probability be will see the singular spectacle of his own shadow
extending to the length of five or six hundred feet, at the distance of
about two miles before him." — Hibbert on Apparitions, p. 440, note.
Brewster's Letters on Natural Magic, Lett. 6. In Mr. Gillie's
collection of German stories, there is a very interesting one called
The First of May ; or, Walburga's Night. Goethe's little poem called
Die Harz Reise has no perceptible connection with the Hartz.

P. 121. Through the stones, through the turf, brook and brook-
ling hurry down. — " Here and there on rushes the water, silver-clear,
trickles among the stones, and bathes the naked roots and fibres.
Again, in many places, the water spouts more freely from out of
rocks and roots, and forms little cascades. There is such a strange
murmuring and rustling — the birds sing broken snatches of languishing
songs — the trees whisper as with thousands of maidens' tongues; as
with thousands of maidens' eyes the rare mountain flowers gaze upon
us, and stretch out towards us their singularly broad, conically forked
leaves," &c., &c. — Heine, Reisebilder, vol. i. p. 173. See also his
account of the rise of the Use, p. 223.

P. 121. And the roots, like snakes, &c. — " In consequence of the
rocky nature of the ground, the roots are in many places unable to
penetrate it, and wind, snake-like, over the huge blocks of granite,
which lie scattered everywhere about, like huge play-balls, for the
unearthly revellers to throw at each on May-day night." — Reisebilder.

P. 122. It scatters itself at once. — Shelley has translated
vereinzelt sich — masses itself — probably under the notion of making
the contrast more complete. But the next line — There sparks are
glittering tiear, &c. — shows clearly that the literal version is the
proper one.

202

NOTES

'' But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind,
called Euroclydon." — English Bible.

P. 123. Sir Urian, — This is a common name for the devil in
Germany. Voland (post) is, I believe, one of the names of Beelzebub.

P. 123. By Ilsenstein. — Ilsenstein is a high granite rock on the
Brocken, so called from the brook Ilse, which, according to tradition,
was originally a princess. Felsensee (rock-lake) is another of the
localities.

P. 124. Make room, sweet people. — Probably an allusion to your
most sweet voices, in Coriolanus.

P. 126. Now that I ascend the xvitch-mountain for the last time.
— "And because the contradictions of life and thought have reached
their highest pitch, but at the same time have found their end and
solution, does Mephistopheles convince himself that he has ascended
the Blocksberg for the last time ? " — Ueber Goethe's Faust, Leipzig.

P. 127. Lilith. — I have received several suggestions as to Lilith.
The following passage, (for which I have to thank Dr. Rosen),
extracted from Gesenius's Commentary on Isaiah, (Leipz. 1821, 8vo,
vol. i. p. 916), is the fullest and most satisfactory: —

" Lilith, ftvv (noctuma), is, in the popular belief of the Hebrews,
a female spectre in the shape of a Rnely-dressed woman, which, in
particular, lies in wait for and kills children, like the Lamise and
Striges amongst the Romans. — See Horace, Art, Poet. 340; Ovid,
Fast. vi. 123. This is the Rabbinical account, and the superstition
appears old, as it is to be found in the same form, and with little
variation, amongst all other people. More recently they themselves
have brought it into a kind of system, and turned Lilith into a wife
of Adam's on whom he begot demons, and who still has power to lie
with men and kill children who are not protected by amulets, with
which the Jews of a still later period supply themselves as a protection
against her. — S. Buxtorf, Lexicon. Talmudic, p. 1140; Bisenmenger's
Entdecktes Judenthum, vol. ii. p. 413, et seq.'* See also Brown's
Jewish Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 273.

Burton tells us : " The Talmudists say that Adam had a wife
called Lilis before he married Eve, and of her he begat nothing but
devils." — Anat. of Melancholy, Part 1, Sect. 2, Sub-sec. 2.

P. 127. Procktophantasmist. — The person intended is now

203

APPENDIX

generally understood to be Nicolai of Berlin, a writer who once
enjoyed a considerable reputation of Germany, and through the
medium of the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, sl periodical work
established by him about 1765 in co-operation with Lessing and
Mendelsohn, exercised for nearly twenty years a widely -spread
influence upon German literature. The severity of his criticisms,
written in a cold prosaic spirit, involved him in many disputes;
among others, with Wieland, Fichte, Herder, Lavater, and Goethe.
He had also given offence to Goethe, by publishing a parody on The
Sufferings of Werther, entitled "The Joys of Werther," in which
Werther is made to shoot himself with a pistol loaded with chicken's
blood, and recovers and lives happily. Goethe judiciously carried
on the joke by writing a continuation, in which Werther, though
alive, is represented as blinded by the blood, and bewailing his ill
fortune in not being able to see the beauties of Charlotte. Goethe
says that his reply, though only circulated in manuscript, deprived
Nicolai of all literary consideration. He speaks of him as a man of
talent, but incapable of allowing merit in anything which went the
least beyond his own contracted notions of excellence : —

" Was schiert mich der Berliner Bann

Geschmackler-Pfaffenwesen I

Und wer mich nicht verstehen kann

Der lerne besser lesen." — Goethe.

"To the very last," says Mr. Carlyle, "Nicolai never could
persuade himself, that there was anything in heaven or earth that
was not dreamt of in his philosophy. He was animated with a fierce
zeal against Jesuits; in this, most people thought him partly right;
but when he wrote against Kant's philosophy, without comprehending
it, and judged of poetry as he judged of Brunswick mum, by
its titility, many people thought him wrong. A man of such spiritual
habitudes is now by the Germans called a Philister, Philistine.
Nicolai earned for himself the painful pre-eminence of being Erz-
Philistine, Arch-Philistine.*' — German Romance, vol. iv. p. 15.

In 1791 mental agitation produced such an effect on his nerves,
that for several weeks he appeared to himself continually surrounded
with phantoms, whom he distinctly knew, however, to be mere
creations of his imagination. An account of his malady, drawn up
by the sufferer himself, is quoted by Dr. Hibbert (Theory of

204

NOTES

Apparitions) and may be seen in Nicholson's Philosophical Journal,
vol. vi. p. 161. Bleeding by leeches was one of the remedies resorted
to; this explains the subsequent allusion to them. He died in 1811.

The phrase, es sptikt in Tegel, has sadly puzzled both translators and
commentators. Tegel is a small place about eight or ten miles from
Berlin. In the year 1799, the inhabitants of Berlin, who pride them-
selves very highly on their enlightenment, were fairly taken in by the
story of a ghost, said to haunt the dwelling of a Mr. Schulz at
Tegel. No less than two commissions of distinguished persons set
forth to investigate the character of the apparition. The first
betook themselves to the house on the 13th of September, 1797,
waited from eleven at night till one in the morning, heard a noise,
and saw nothing. The second party were more fortunate, for one
of them rushed with such precipitation towards the place from
whence the noise proceeded, that the ghost was under the necessity of
decamping in a hurry, leaving the instruments with which he made
the noise (very clumsy contrivances) as spolia opima to the conquerors.
Thus began and ended the Tegel ghost's career, who however fully
rivalled our Cock-lane ghost in celebrity, and gave rise to a good
deal of controversy. This statement is taken from an account
published in 1798, in 8vo, with the motto : — " Parturiunt montes,
nascetur ridiculus mus." Dr. Hitzig (to whom I am indebted for it)
proposes the following interpretation : —

'' We Berlin folks (enlightened by me Nicolai) are so wise (so
free from prejudice) and Tegel is haunted notwithstanding (we
notwithstanding suffer our heads to be turned by a ghost story, so
stupid as this of Tegel.")

Shelley and M. Stapfer say Brocktophantasmist. This alteration
destroys the etymology, which the allusion to the leeches shows to
be HpiOKTos,

P. 128. A red mouse jumped out of her mouth, — " The following
incident occurred at a nobleman's seat at Thiiringen, about the
beginning of the seventeenth century. The servants were paring
fruit in the room, when a girl becoming sleepy, left the others and
laid herself down, apart but not far off, on a bank, to repose. After
she had laid still a short time, a little red mouse crept out of her
mouth, which was open. Most of the people saw it, and showed it
to one another. The mouse ran hastily to the open window, crept

205

APPENDIX

through, and remained a short space without. A forward waiting-
maid, whose curiosity was excited by what she saw, spite of the
remonstrances of the rest, went up to the inanimate maiden, shook
her, and removed her to another place a little further off, and then
left her. Shortly afterwards the mouse returned, ran to the former
familiar spot, where it had crept out of the maiden's mouth, ran up
and down as if it could not find its way and was at a loss what to
do, and then disappeared. The maiden, however, was dead, and
remained dead. The forward waiting-maid repented of what she
had done in vain. In the same establishment, a lad had before then
been often tormented by the sorceress and could have no peace ;
this ceased on the maiden's death." — Deutsche Sagen, No. 247.

The same work contains a story of two maidens who were
accustomed to dispatch their souls on evil errands in the shape of
smoke, and a story of a maiden whose soul used to leave her in the
shape of a cat (Nos. 248, 249) ; but I find nothing about a gray mouse.

P. 129. As merry as in the Prater. — Alluding to the Prater of
Vienna.

P. 129. When I find you upon the Blocksberg, — To wish a man
upon the Blocksberg — Ich wunsche den Kerl auf dem Blocksberg — is
like wishing him at the devil, in English. This speech has in German
the effect of a pun.

P. 133. The Intermezzo, — It is quite impossible to convey to
the English reader more than a very faint notion of this scene. The
effect is produced almost exclusively by satirical allusions, quaintly
rhymed, to things and persons not generally known even in Germany ;
though no one who has ever witnessed the delight with which Germans
belonging to the inner circle of educated society dwell upon it, can
doubt that it possesses merit of a high order in its way. It is
impossible to explain all the allusions without rambling far beyond
the limits of a note. I must, therefore, confine myself to such
particulars as admit of compression.

The Midsummer Night's Dream and Wieland's Oberon have
furnished the basis of the first seven or eight stanzas and some of
the last.

Mieding, mentioned in the first couplet, was scene-painter to the
Weimar Theatre. Goethe has immortalised him by a little poem on
his death : —

2o6

NOTES

" Wie I Mieding todt ? erschallt bis unter's Dach
Das hohle Haus, von Echo kehrt ein Ach I
Die Arbeit stockt, die Hand wird jedem schwer,
Der Leim wird kaltt die Farbe fliesst nicht mehr*^

There are other lines in the poem, however, which would rather
lead me to suppose him stage-manager. He is mentioned by
Dohring (p. 198).

The Inquisitive Traveller is Nicolai ; and the allusion to the
stiff man smelling after Jesuits is to him. He had written Travels
full of denunciations of popery.

I have been told that the words put into the mouth of the
northern artist are intended as a quiz on the style of expression
affected by the German artists of the day, but I rather think they
allude to Goethe's own Italian Journey, which might be almost said
to have revolutionised his mind. A distinguished German critic
thinks that Fernow is the person alluded to.

The Gods of Greece — Die Gotter Griechenlands — is the title
of a well-known poem of Schiller's, which somewhat scandalised
the strict people of his day. Some useful notes upon it are contained
in Klattowsky's Manual.

The Purist is said to typify a school of critics who affected
great zeal for purity of expression, and strict attention to costume,
upon the stage.

The Xenien, as is well known, is the name given by Goethe and
Schiller to verses, mostly satirical or epigrammatical, which they
published from time to time in co-partnership. These formed an
important era in German literature. " A war of all the few good
heads in the nation, with all the many bad ones (says Mr. Carlyle,)
began in Schiller's Musenalmanach for 1793. The Xenien (in
another place he names the Horen along with them), a series of
philosophic epigrams, jointly by Schiller and Goethe, descended
there unexpectedly, like a flood of ethereal fire, on the German
literary world ; quickening all that was noble into new life, but
visiting the ancient empire of dullness with astonishment and
unknown pangs." The war might have been commenced in this
manner, but the burden of maintaining it (as Mr. Carlyle himself
half admits in another place*) certainly fell upon the Schlegels and

* German Romance, vol. ii., p. 8.

207

APPENDIX

Tiecky to whose admirable critical productions the Xenien bears
about the same relation that the sharp-shooters bear to the regular
army.

The Genius of the Age and The Musaget were the names of
literary journals edited by Hennings ; who was at different times
in controversy with the Schlegels, Schiller, and Goethe. Hennings
is also attacked in the Xenien. One of Goethe's minor poems is
entitled Die Musageten.

The extent of the German Parnassus is an old joke. A few
years since it was computed there were no less than fourteen
thousand living authors in Germany. Goethe wrote a little poem
entitled Deutscher Pamass^ in which he spiritedly apostrophises
the invading crowd : —

** Ach, die Biische sind geknickt I
Ach, die Blumen sind erstickt I
Von der Sohlen dieser Brut —
Wer begegnet ihrer Wuth ? "

The Crane is said to mean Herder. To the best of my
information, Irrlichter means parvenus : and Stemschnuppe a sort of
poetical Icarus, who mounts like a rocket and comes down like the
stick. Most of the other allusions refer to well-known classes in
society, or to sects or schools in metaphysical philosophy.

M. Varnhagen von Enso tells me that many more verses were
originally composed for the Intermezzo.

Goldene Hochzeit means the fiftieth anniversary of a marriage ;
Silbeme Hochzeit, the twenty-fifth.

P. 138. To roll before the feet, &c. — This alludes to a prevalent
superstition, that evil spirits will sometimes place themselves in the
path of a foot passenger, in the shape of a dog or other animal, with
the view of tripping him up and springing upon him when down.
Thus Caliban, in allusion to the spirits set upon him by Prospero : —

" Some time, like apes, that moe and chatter at me,
And after, bite me ; then like hedge-hogs, which
Lie tumbling in my bare-foot way."

Tempest, Act ii. sc. 2.

P. 141. What are they working — about the Ravenstone yonder?
— The Rabenstein is so called because ravens are often seen hovering
round it. Retzsch*s outline is the best commentary.

2o8

NOTES

P. 142. My mother y the whore, &c. — This song is founded on
a popular German story, to be found in the Kinder-und Haus-
Mdrchen of the distinguished brothers Grimm, under the title of
Van den Machandel-Boom, and in the English selection from
that work (entitled German Popular Stories) under the title of
The Juniper Tree. — The wife of a rich man, whilst standing under
a juniper tree, wishes for a little child as white as snow and as red
as blood; and on another occasion expresses a wish to be buried
under the juniper when dead. Soon after, a little boy as white as
snow and as red as blood is born : the mother dies of joy at beholding
it, and is buried according to her wish. The husband marries again,
and has a daughter. The second wife, becoming jealous of the boy,
murders him and serves him up at table for the unconscious father
to eat. The father finishes the whole dish, and throws the bones
under the table. The little girl, who is made the innocent assistant
in her mother's villany, picks them up, ties them in a silk hand-
kerchief, and buries them under the juniper tree. The tree begins
to move its branches mysteriously, and then a kind of cloud rises
from it, a fire appears in the cloud, and out of the fire comes a
beautiful bird, which flies about singing the following song : —

** Min Moder de mi slacht't,
Min Vader de mi att,
Min Swester de Marleenken
Socht alle mine Beeniken,
Un bindt sie in een syden Dock,
Legts unner den Machandelboom ;
Kywitt I Kywitt I ach watt en schon Vagel bin ich ? "

The literal translation would

My mother who slew me.

My father who ate me,

My sister Mary Anne,

Gathers all my bones

And binds them up in a silk handkerchief,

Lays them under the juniper tree.

Kywitt I Kywitt I ah what a beautiful bird am I.

P. 146. The staff breaks. — The signal for the executioner to do his
duty, is given by the breaking of a wand or staff.

P. 146. The blood-seat. — " This alludes to the German custom of
tying the unfortunate female that is to be beheaded on a wooden chair.

209

APPENDIX

Males on such melancholy occasions are kneeling on a little heap of
sand." — Boileau's Remarks, page 19-

P. 147. She is judged. — Some difference of opinion prevails as to
the concluding sentences of this scene. The more poetical interpre-
tation is, that Margaret dies after pronouncing the last words assigned
to her;^that the judgment of Heaven is pronounced upon her as her
spirit parts; that Mephistopheles announces it in his usual sardonic
and deceitful style; that the voice from above makes known its real
purport; and that the xnnce from within, dying away, is Margaret's
spirit calling to her lover on its way to heaven, whilst her body lies
dead upon the stage. This is the only mode in which the voice from
within, dying away, can be accounted for. M. de Schlegel, however,
certainly the highest living authority on such matters, says : *' Sie ist
gerichtet, se rapporte k la sentence de mort prononc6e par le juge ; les
mots suivants, Sie ist gerettet au salut de son &me." It has been
contended that Sie ist gerichtet refers both to the judgment in heaven
and to the judgment upon earth. As to the translation of the passage,
no doubt can well exist, for richten is literally to judge, and is
constantly used in the precise sense the above interpretation attributes
to it ; for instance, Die Lebendigen und die Todten zu richten, to judge
the quick and the dead.

THE END

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